


Resolution / Intervention

by Molly



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: First Time, M/M, Purple!purple!purple!, Violence, ep-related:Revelations 6:8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-19
Updated: 2008-09-18
Packaged: 2017-10-02 00:18:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 48,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molly/pseuds/Molly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>A way early take on how Mac and Methos might have dealt with the events of CAH and Rev. 6:8.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Resolution

Rain.

Lately, it always seemed to come back to rain. Leaden skies, grey days, and thunder. There were times when he wasn't sure if the clouds were causing, or caused by, the storms raging inside him.

On a leather couch in a large room, Duncan MacLeod sat quietly, head resting in his hands. Dark brown hair, freed for once from its customary band, curled in a soft fall over his shoulders. His body was young, eternally so, but his mind and heart within were heavy with age. The gentle hiss of rain against the many windows of the loft broke the silence gently, incessantly; the occasional flash of lightning illuminated the faded brick walls in stark, icy light.

Everywhere there were traces of the past. Mementos of past travels lined the walls in curious counterpart to items of modern convenience. A designer might have described the mix as eclectic, and been impressed with the contrast between antiquity and the cutting edge of progress. Few would have seen it for what it was: The haven of a man whose life had spanned centuries, who had gathered to himself the rich beauty of each lifetime and created in his home a monument to both the history he'd witnessed and the age he currently embraced.

The center of the long room was blocked out by an oriental rug, its weave of the same muted grey, brown, and olive tones as the furniture. The couch and chairs were of fine old leather, soft as butter and beckoning with comfort. Behind the couch, a king-sized bed with a grey-green spread and plump pillows dominated the room's sleeping area, an aged tapestry softening the harsh brick wall above it. At the opposite end of the loft was the kitchen, a bare sketch of a room with dishes set on open racks above the counters and a good-sized island in the middle companioned by a few low stools.

The loft was a model of good house-keeping, from the perfectly made bed to the shining cleanliness of the kitchen. No papers cluttered the top of the long, flat desk positioned near the loft's elevator, nor did dust rest on any of the curios or pieces of art. The unrelieved order mocked the man who lived within it, at odds with the emotional turmoil rising inside him.

Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. He said the words in the quiet of his mind, and found that he'd lost the connection to them. For four hundred years, that name, that affiliation, had defined him. He'd drawn the boundaries of his soul with those words, built his life around what they meant to him.

Honor. Loyalty. Courage. Kin.

Lost.

Immortals have no family, but he'd done his best to build one. The friends he'd made, he'd made his Clan. Maybe there was no formal ceremony, maybe they didn't even know it, but they belonged to him, and he to them. He'd taken Richie Ryan into his home, Joe Dawson into his confidence, Amanda into his bed. The Clan MacLeod he knew was lost in the mists of time, lost to him forever. The oaths he'd sworn to his clan had transferred to the make-shift family he'd created with no fanfare, no announcement. He didn't question it. It was the way things were.

No. It was the way things had been.

Richie had moved out. He'd forgiven Mac for the things he'd done under the influence of the Dark Quickening, but Mac hadn't been able to forgive himself. And Richie hadn't felt comfortable in the Dojo after that; he'd found an apartment, and spent more and more time out on his own. It had been days since Mac had last seen him.

Dawson was closed off behind a wall of hurt MacLeod had built for him. Mac closed his eyes, remembering all the times he'd shut Joe out of his life, all the times he'd turned his back on the man who had never asked for anything but his friendship, whose only goals had been to help him. The man who'd stood by him even when Mac had sent him away again and again. Joe Dawson had learned more about loyalty in his 50 years of life than Mac had in four hundred. He'd given of that loyalty unstintingly for years, and Mac had taken it for granted, abused it, ignored it...and only very rarely bothered to return it. Now Joe always had a smile and a drink for him at the bar, but the smile was superficial, and his eyes lacked warmth. Mac didn't even know if Joe was Watching him anymore. There were new faces haunting him through the streets of Seacouver these days, and Joe seemed to have lost interest in his assignment.

And Amanda was just....gone. He'd last seen her in Paris, after his fight with Keane; she'd taken off for parts unknown after that, and didn't bother to say where she was going or when she'd be back. It could be anything between a week and a century.

Of the family he'd built, that left only one. The one loss that cut deepest of all.

Methos.

                                  

  
   


* * *

  
   


Methos opened the door to his apartment just a crack and flinched visibly as a wave of deja vu wash over him. The woman in red waiting outside, with her short chestnut hair and huge, dark eyes, brought trouble with her like a faithful servant. He hadn't known her long, but even a short acquaintance with such a woman was sometimes more than enough.

"Amanda!" he said pleasantly over the chain lock. "Go away."

"Let me in, Methos," she demanded, lips set in an angry red line. There was enough determination in her eyes to change the course of a star.

"Oh, no. I let you in, next thing I know I'll be shooting somebody in the back. Again."

"Methos, I need your help."

"I've heard that one before. Go recruit somebody with a little less to lose, all right? I'm not opening this door."

Her voice dropped an octave, to the level of velvet danger. "Open it," she said softly. "I can enter as a guest or I can enter uninvited, but I am coming in. And you want me to be happy once I'm there, Methos. You really do."

With a sigh, Methos removed the chain and let her in. She probably wouldn't kill him if he didn't, but he didn't think much of the odds she'd leave his apartment in one piece.

"What is it this time? No, wait, I'm keen to guess." He closed his eyes and touched fingers to his temples. "I see a tall, dark Scotsman with very little sense....wrestling with a moral dilemma...someone lurking in the shadows with a sword....an intimation of danger...." He stopped, and cast a glance at the short red dress Amanda was just barely wearing. "Either that, or you've finally decided who's the better man."

The book struck him full in the chest; luckily, it was a paperback. He held Amanda's eyes with his as he picked it up, hoping she'd telegraph any further violent whims. "You lost my place," he said.

Amanda's glare made it clear that she wasn't interested in his problems. She swept the apartment with her eyes before taking a seat, her legs crossed primly at the ankles. Probably casing the place, he thought. His own eyes darted around the room, making sure everything that wasn't hidden was either bolted down or low in value. Discreetly, Methos moved to place himself between Amanda and his desk, protecting with his body the journals he'd been working on .

"There is something wrong with Duncan," Amanda said, "but damned if I can figure out what it is. He doesn't call Richie, he doesn't go to Joe's, he doesn't do anything. He just sits there in his loft and broods. Methos, you have to go talk to him. Find out what's wrong."

"Amanda, are you feeling all right? Has your memory failed you? Cast your mind back to what happened the last time you asked me to talk to MacLeod." For a moment, she actually seemed to be thinking about it. "Is it seeming like less of a good idea now?" He made his voice deliberately patronizing, in the hope that if she were sufficiently irritated, she might go bother somebody else. Dawson, maybe. Or Ryan. Methos nodded to himself at that thought. Ryan and Amanda definitely deserved each other.

"Methos, I didn't know where else to go."

He sighed, shaking his head. Whatever medicine MacLeod needed, he didn't have it in stock. "Look. I'm not going to give you a dissertation on what's happened between me and MacLeod, but believe me when I tell you: I am the last person he wants to see."

"Why?" she said, eyes flashing dangerously as she abandoned the honeyed approach. "One day you're his shadow; the next day you've vanished, you've left the Watchers, and no one is allowed to speak your name in Duncan's presence. I don't know what you've done to him, Methos, but you've got to fix it. You've got to!" Her voice broke at the last, tears filling her eyes.

"I can't! D'you think I want it to be this way? D'you think I've got so many friends I can spare Duncan MacLeod? I've tried to talk to him. He doesn't listen. He doesn't care what I have to say."

Amanda sagged into a chair, bowing her head into her hands. "I can't stand to see him like this," she said. "I don't know what to do. Coming to you was the only thing I could think of."

Methos knelt beside her chair and put a hand over hers. "There are things about me you don't know," he said, tilting her chin up and forcing her to meet his eyes. "Things that MacLeod can't live with. I'm sorry, Amanda, but whatever friendship he and I could have had with each other is dead. It died twenty-five hundred years before he was born."

"No," she said. She squeezed his hand and raised her eyes up to his. "You're right, Methos, I don't know what happened between you two. He won't talk about it. But whatever it is, this...this darkness he's living in...you're at the heart of it, and you're the only one who can take it away."

Methos unlaced their fingers and turned toward the window. Outside, the sky was dark with the promise of rain. "He needs me to be the person he thought I was. No matter how hard I've tried to be, I'm not that man, Amanda. I never have been."

"You saved his life," she said. "That's enough for me. You've saved his life several times, even when it meant a risk to your own. Why?"

"What do you mean, why?" he snapped. "Because the man's an idiot! He'll trust anybody who bats their eyes at him! He can't walk down the street without tripping over four people who want to kill him for being such a boyscout all his life, and he won't raise a hand against anyone but Satan himself."

"That's why he was in danger; it's not why you saved him from it."

Methos ran a hand through his short hair, cursing under his breath in a language that had died before Amanda was born. It was a startlingly insightful question, one he'd asked himself time and again. He still didn't have an answer. Maybe there was no answer to be had.

"Somebody had to," he muttered finally, unable to meet her eyes. And then, words he'd said before, not so long ago. "He's too important to lose."

                                   

  
   


* * *

  
   


Richie stood in front of the elevator guard in the deserted Dojo, gathering the will to go upstairs. His footsteps had echoed loudly on the hardwood floor as he'd walked into the darkened room, a lonely sound that somehow both saddened and irritated the young man. Everything had been pushed to the sides of the room, opening up the hardwood floor for Mac's workout. In spite of the warm familiarity of the Dojo, in spite of how much it felt like home, Richie could think of more than fifteen places he'd rather be. Not that it mattered; he didn't really get a choice in the matter. Joe was working, Amanda was searching out Methos, and anyway, it was his turn.

They'd agreed to keep an eye on Mac just before Amanda left. Joe had the easy part; since he'd moved up a bit in the organization, he had the authority to set a few Watchers in strategic locations. He didn't even have to leave the bar. Somebody had to actually talk to Mac, though, to make sure he wasn't considering anything stupid. Somehow, that job had fallen to Richie.

He keyed into the elevator, and rode up in silence. The small, dim space was stuffy, confining, and he reached up to pull the collar of his brown leather jacket away from his neck. Halfway to the second floor, he felt the flash of awareness that warned of another immortal's presence, and steeled himself. Part of him had been hoping Mac would be out.

His mentor greeted him at the elevator guard with a sword -- which, all things considered, was probably a good thing. At least he'd gotten past the apathy. There'd been a few weeks there when MacLeod wouldn't even look at a blade, which had made all of them more than a little nervous.

"It's just me, Mac," he said, pulling up the guard and then holding his hands out, palms open. "I've come for a beer, not your head." It was a feeble joke, but he had an easy room; MacLeod chuckled a bit as he put away his sword. Richie took the opportunity to observe his mentor unawares, quickly noting the gauntness of cheeks that normally bloomed with health and cheer. The same immortality that had frozen Richie permanently at age 18 also protected from ill health; there was very little Mac could do to himself that would cause any long-term damage. Still, he didn't look as if he'd been eating well. And he was making noise when he walked -- that, more than anything, gave Richie pause for concern. On his way past the couch, Richie could have sworn MacLeod narrowly missed bumping into the coffee table. Grace was as much a part of Mac as his immortality was; to see him without it worried Richie more than he cared to admit.

"Nice to see you, Richie," Mac said as he returned, offering his hand. "Where've you been?"

"Fulfilling my duties to the young ladies of Seacouver," Richie answered, grinning. Unflattering as it was, his sex life was always good for a laugh.

"A man's work is never done," Mac replied, answering his student's grin with one of his own. It was faint, but genuine; Richie mentally filed that under 'positive' for the report Amanda would demand later. "There's beer in the fridge."

Richie opened the door and grabbed a bottle. "Anything on TV tonight?" The top of the bottle joined its brethren atop the refrigerator, just under the wine rack.

"Hockey on ESPN."

"There's a surprise." Richie folded himself into a chair and propped his feet up on the coffee table, an insolent grin daring approbation. MacLeod glanced from the dusty boots up to his erstwhile student's eyes, saying nothing, and Richie moved his feet. Whatever's wrong with him, it sure hasn't affected his parental tendencies, Richie noted with an inward smile. Another positive.

"So, Mac, what've you been doing?" he asked, craning his neck back to look around. The loft was spotless; the bed was perfectly made, the furniture polished till it gleamed, the kitchen counters wiped clean and reflective. There were no dishes in the sink, no papers on Mac's desk. From all appearances, Mac had been holed up in the loft for weeks doing housework.

"I've been watching a great deal of television," Mac answered, his eyes following the path Richie's had taken around the loft.

"Then you'll like this," Richie said, opening his knapsack. "I come bearing gifts. You have a VCR around here somewhere, don't you?"

"Yeah, but I don't think --"

"Let's see...what've we got... " Richie began pulling video cases out of the bag, keeping up a running commentary as he went. "'Alien'...that's about --"

"An alien, maybe?"

"Yeah. There are two sequels, but we'll just pretend they were a bad dream. The second was okay, the third one was a nightmare. The first one, though, that's a classic. I also brought Friday the 13th parts one through ten. That Jason guy could teach us immortals a thing or two about resilience."

"Richie, I don't need a babysitter."

Richie paused as Mac's voice filtered through his monologue, unsure what to say. Was I that obvious? he wondered silently. I knew this was a bad idea... The truth was, a babysitter was exactly what Mac needed. He just didn't know how to word that in such a way that he'd be alive at the end of the sentence.

"I don't know what you mean, Mac," he fumbled, trying to recover. "I was just--"

"You were just taking your turn. I know. Last night I considered asking Joe's tag-team Watchers up to the loft for dinner; I would have, if I didn't know it would've scared them out of their skins. Go home, Richie. I'm not going to do anything foolish."

Richie wrestled with indecision, but just for a moment. MacLeod had taught him the value of silence, but he'd also taught him that there were times when you had to speak out. In the absence of guidance, he decided this was one of the latter. "We're not afraid of you doing something foolish, Mac," he said with a quiet intensity. "We're afraid of you not doing anything at all. How long are you going to go on sulking up here?"

"That's not what I'm doing."

"What you're doing," Richie said firmly, "is feeling sorry for yourself. It's not like you. We care about you, Mac, and we want you to get past this. Aren't you even going to try?"

"Look, Richie, I know you're just trying to help. But you can't do this for me. None of you can."

"Then you do it. Let us back in, Mac. Let us help you, ok?"

MacLeod said nothing, and Richie turned away with his thoughts in turmoil. It made him uncomfortable to see his teacher like this, so beaten. Nothing had hit him this hard since Tessa had died; Richie hadn't known what to do then, and he didn't know what to do now. He knew that there were depths to MacLeod's personality he couldn't fathom, and he felt helpless in the face of such determined misery.

And so it was almost with a sense of relief that he heard the elevator's motor grind into life. MacLeod turned with Richie to face the source of the hyper awareness that alerted them to the Presence of another immortal.

When the elevator returned, Richie breathed a sigh of relief; not just because the new arrival wasn't an enemy, but because he'd just been let off the proverbial hook.

"I was just on my way out," he said, grabbing his knapsack and moving past them into the elevator. Both men ignored him, their eyes locked in a silent test of will.

By the time he disappeared from view, neither MacLeod nor Methos had made a single move.

                                   

  
   


* * *

  
   


Mac turned away first. "Drop the elevator key on the table when you leave," he said, his voice implying that the sooner that happened the better off he'd be.

Methos blinked, one corner of his mouth twisting up in self-mockery. He'd known it wasn't going to be pleasant; he just hadn't realized how much it would hurt. "Yeah," he said, taking off his coat and tossing it at a hook on the wall. "Thanks, I'd love a beer."

MacLeod glared as Methos helped himself to a bottle from the fridge. Methos bore up under it, not unused to the expression, and popped the cap off. "You hire a housekeeper recently?" he inquired, gesturing at the general cleanliness with the bottle.

"What are you doing here, Methos?" MacLeod demanded.

He shrugged. "I honestly don't know. One minute Amanda was at my door, the next minute I was at yours. If we could figure out how she does it, we could rule the world."

"I thought you gave up that ambition."

Methos darted a look of hurt and disappointment at the man he had -- still -- considered his closest friend. "It was an expression, MacLeod," he said dryly. "I didn't invent it." He tilted his head back and took a long pull from the bottle. Something told him he didn't want to face the rest of this conversation stone cold sober.

"I don't know what Amanda told you, but I don't want you here," Mac said. "You know your way out." He threw himself into a chair, facing away from the unwanted visitor.

Methos groaned inwardly, rolling his eyes. MacLeod would never learn. For a man so sure I can't be trusted, he thought, he's awfully comfortable turning his back on me.

Perhaps it was time to make a point.

The thought and the deed were one; in a split second, Methos' blade was at MacLeod's throat, his breath coming fast from the exertion as he leaned over the back of the chair. "Is this why you want me to go, MacLeod?" he demanded as the other man froze in his seat. "Afraid I'll take your head? You think that's what I'm here for?"

"I don't know what you're here for," Mac answered carefully. The muscles in his neck were taut with the effort to keep his throat off the blade.

"I could have it now. A twist of my arm, and your head is mine. Maybe I should. It's what you expect of me, isn't it? Maybe it's even what you want from me. Shall we play it this way, then, Highlander? It seems a fair deal, don't you think? I take your head, and you -- you get to be right. I bet that sounds appealing. You die, of course, but you get to do it on the moral high ground."

A flicker in MacLeod's dark eyes let Methos know he'd injected the right amount of flippancy into the remark; it was the tone that gave him a direct line under MacLeod's skin. He'd noticed within an hour of their first meeting that there were certain kinds of remarks that, said in a certain way, worked like fingernails down a blackboard. Methos had been practicing assiduously ever since, and now considered him self something of an expert.

"I don't want to be right," MacLeod ground out through clenched teeth.

"Don't you!" Methos said, his voice hard and dark as he pulled back and tossed his blade to the floor. He whirled away from the Scotsman, pressing the heels of his palms to his temples as if to hold in all the angry, bitter things he wanted to say. Several deep breaths and counts of ten later, he turned back to face MacLeod only to find him out of the chair, across the room with a katana in his hand.

Methos laughed quietly, a dry and humorless sound. "A little late for that, isn't it?" he said. "If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead already."

There was a wrenching sorrow in MacLeod's dark eyes, and evidence of an even more agonizing confusion. "Can't you just leave me in peace?" he said softly.

The plea cut Methos to the heart. He almost did leave then; if it would have eased the weariness and pain in his friend's eyes, he would have. It wasn't going to work that way, though. Five thousand years hadn't left him completely insensitive to the human heart; if he left now, with so much unsaid between them, Mac would be worse off than if he'd never come in the first place.

"I can't." Methos voice was low, trying to convey the depth of his regret for causing this pain. "Not until you've heard what I have to say to you."

MacLeod shook his head slowly, the fire draining out of him; he set aside his sword, and returned to the chair. "If you put it that way," he said. "Talk fast."

                                   

  
   


* * *

  
   


He didn't even want to look at him. Methos stood in front of him, his hazel eyes a constant request for clemency that he didn't have to give and a constant reproof for a judgment he couldn't help but make. Methos had said it himself: What he'd done, Mac couldn't forgive. Not even if he wanted to.

Perhaps, especially if he wanted to.

Moments spun into crystalline silence. Methos' steady gaze was unnerving; it carried the weight of centuries. Mac had no doubt the man could stare at him like that, unblinking, for days if he chose to. Given leave to speak, Methos was now strangely silent. Perhaps he was just now realizing there was nothing left to say.

There was no such luck in store for Duncan MacLeod.

"I don't know where to start," Methos said, sounding a little lost as he sank down onto the leather couch across from MacLeod. "I didn't think I'd get this far."

"I didn't think you had the guts to get this far," Mac said harshly.

"Don't flatter yourself," Methos answered wearily. "It would've taken more courage to say no to Amanda than it has to come here and speak to you."

Something with which MacLeod could not, in good faith, disagree. "Why don't you start by telling my why you think I'd want to hear anything you have to say."

"That's the easy part. According to Amanda, you've been brooding for weeks about the state of my soul and the nature of my past sins. Normally I wouldn't mind the kibitzing, but I've been handling the job just fine for the past two thousand years and I hate to see you wasting your time."

"The state of your soul is of no interest to me, Methos."

"If only." Methos sighed, and looked away. "Gods, if only."

Mac cast his eyes toward the floor. The sorrow in Methos' voice was an echo of his own, and he didn't even want that in common with the man who'd called himself 'Death on a horse.'

"I won't apologize to you for things I did before you were born, MacLeod," Methos said softly. "It would have no meaning for you, and it couldn't come close to expressing the depth of my regret."

"Your regrets," Mac said. "Why should I believe you have any?"

"Because you know me! You may not like what you know, but don't pretend to be ignorant of who I am. It's an insult to the friendship we did share, once."

"I thought I knew you, Methos. I wanted to know you."

"You do. You just can't bring yourself to admit it. Look at you, brooding for weeks while trying to reconcile the man I was with the man you wanted me to be. I have news for you, Highlander. I'm not either of those men."

"Then who are you?" MacLeod stood up and paced the length of the couch, a bitter anguish lining his face. "Who are you, Methos?"

Methos blocked MacLeod's path, and glared into his eyes. The things he hadn't wanted to say surged out of him before he could stop them. "I'm the guy who offered you his head so you could stop Kalas," he said, his low whisper almost a hiss. "The guy who took Kristin's head when you couldn't, so she would stop coming for you and your student. Remember Ingrid? I'm the guy who was there for you after you had to kill her. You want more? I'm the one who pulled you out of evil after your Dark Quickening and brought you back to yourself, something I knew even then I was bound to regret." That last wasn't precisely true, but at least his confrontations with MacLeod's dark side had been relatively lecture-free. "I'm the one who fought and killed a man I'd called my brother for a thousand years. You think I did that for the people of Bordeaux? I did it for you, MacLeod. That's who I am."

"No!" Mac couldn't control the anger in his voice. "That's who you wanted me to think you were."

"Yes. But it's more than that. It's who I wanted to be. It's who you helped me to be."

"You don't get to be that person. Not after the things you did."

Anger tinged Methos' voice as he answered. "What do you want me to do? D'you think that I don't grasp the magnitude of the wrongs I've committed? Do you imagine that there's some way I can atone for it? What forgiveness is there for a man who slaughtered thousands of innocents, even if he should ask it? What penance would be great enough? My life? Take it. I'd have done it myself centuries ago if I hadn't thought death was too good for me."

"So instead you pay no price."

"I pay every day, MacLeod. I pay with the knowledge of what I've done and the certainty that there is no force on Earth strong enough to absolve me. The only way I know to expiate my crimes is to live, and to feel their weight on my heart every day. I can't live long enough to feel all the pain I've earned, but I can try. It's all I have."

Mac remained silent, remembering his justifications to Stephen Keane after the death of Sean Burns. I live with it every day, he'd said. To hear his own words echoed back to him, for much the same reason, shook his composure. Could his wrongs and his penance be compared to those of Methos? And if they could...what then? He'd condemned Methos in his mind for taking pleasure in killing; but hadn't there been, for a few horrifying moments, a dark pleasure in his murder of Sean? He'd gone to the man for help, he'd been that much in his right mind; he'd resisted the urge to kill Joe, to kill Methos, each time he'd had the chance. Having been possessed of that much reason, could he honestly blame Sean's murder on the insanity of the Dark Quickening?

Or could it be that a part of him knew what power lay in terror and death, and craved it, just as Methos had all those years ago? The thought of how alike they might be made him shudder.

"Do you want to hear something amusing?" Methos was smiling a bit in self-mockery as he posed the question. "Sometimes I think that maybe there is someone out there...up there...who looks down at my life and punishes me, a little at a time, for the things I've done. Sometimes I wonder if maybe..."

"Maybe what?"

"I wonder if Alexa died...because of me. To punish me."

The pain in the man's voice made it hoarse and low; it hurt Mac just to hear it. He stood abruptly, and one step brought him close enough to grab Methos' slight shoulders and shake him once, hard. For a moment, he didn't think about the things the man had done. All he heard was the hurt, and Duncan MacLeod had never been a man who could ignore another's pain.

"Alexa died because she was sick, Methos," he said firmly, his voice rough, but kind. Whatever he believed to be the truth of this man, he had never been able to doubt the depth of Methos' love for the woman who'd died so recently, in such pain. "She was a woman with a life and friends and family. God didn't put her on this planet just to kill her so you would hurt. It doesn't work like that."

"Then how does it work?" Methos demanded. Mac could almost see the other man's soul bleeding. "Alexa was possessed of such courage and beauty, such goodness..." His voice broke, and he closed his eyes, visibly struggling to regain control. "It doesn't seem possible that her death was random. The destruction of such a woman, MacLeod.... it speaks to me of malice. Of intent. I know it's irrational, believe me! But the idea that she died for my crimes... I can't get it out of my head."

"I don't know how it works, Methos, but it's not that way. Alexa's death wasn't about you. If anything, you were blessed to share her last days, and she was blessed to have someone who cared about her there at the end."

Methos laughed without humor, a cold sound that grated against MacLeod's ears. "Me, a blessing. I think not."

"To Alexa, you were. Thank God she didn't know..." He trailed off, his face tightening in self-reproach as he realized what he'd said.

"...what a vicious, murdering bastard I really am," Methos finished for him. "Yes, I suppose I do have that to be thankful for."

Mac turned away, his heart shutting down. He'd expended all the comfort he had for the man who'd been Death.

Methos closed his eyes, and shook his head slightly. A ghost of a smile, self-realization, touched his lips. "I can't do this," he said softly. "You were right. I shouldn't have come."

He tossed his key onto the coffee table and turned toward the elevator. He stopped with his hand on the guard, casting one last glance around the room he'd come to consider almost a second home.

His eyes stopped on MacLeod's. "I hope someday you can forgive yourself," he said softly, his voice rough with emotion.

"Forgive myself? For what?"

"For not being able to hate me, no matter how hard you try. Amanda was right; I did do this to you. I made you my friend, and then I made you see what I am." He stepped into the elevator and pulled down the guard. "I didn't intend to hurt you," he finished softly. "But then you knew that, didn't you?"

The elevator took him out of sight.

                                   

  
   


* * *

  
   


(Two weeks later, Joe's)

"Why can't I just stay out of things?" Amanda said, twirling her shot glass on the counter of Joe's bar. Joe took it from her fingers and set a coaster underneath it.

The place was empty, and would be for at least another hour; the single light above the bar cast the tables, bearing upside down chairs, into hazy silhouette. Bottles of every shape and size lined shelves behind the bar, surfaces catching and throwing back the light; a similar gleam, reflective tears, shone in Amanda's eyes.

"You care," Joe said gently. "We all do."

"Yes, and look at where it gets us, Joe. I was trying to help. Now Duncan won't speak to me, and Methos has vanished. Richie is the only one with access now, and he doesn't have a clue what to do or say."

"That's not precisely true," Joe said, already regretting the decision he'd just made. He'd known Amanda long enough to suspect she hadn't come to his bar just for a drink and a little commiseration. She'd come to talk him into seeing MacLeod, and he'd already resolved not to fight her on it.

Amanda wasn't blind. "I knew I could count on you, Joe. You've never let him down."

"Yeah," he said bitterly. "Good old Joe."

Her hand came up, touched his bearded cheek softly. "We take you so much for granted," she said. "You're always here for us, and the only time anybody remembers is when they want something."

Joe was startled at the woman's insight. To all appearances, a thousand years hadn't given Amanda a great deal of emotional depth, but sometimes... Sometimes she said something so right on the money you had to re-evaluate.

"You think we don't know?" she asked softly. "Mac isn't the best at talking about his feelings, especially not to the person those feelings are about. When he hurts over Methos or Richie, he comes to you. But when he hurts over you, Joe, he comes to me."

Joe shook his head, not wanting to hear anything more about Duncan MacLeod and his feelings. He'd thought about that subject for the greater part of the last ten years of his life, and even more in the years since they'd met and grown to be friends. Or whatever they were. Joe had always thought it was friendship, but lately he'd come to realize that it was one-sided. MacLeod thought of Joe when he needed information, or when he needed help, or even just a drink. He understood, now, that it ended there.

"Joe, I know you don't believe it now, but it's true. Remember what happened after Jack Shapiro put the two of you on trial?"

"I'm not likely to forget that anytime soon," he said gruffly. He still remembered the look on MacLeod's face at the end, when he'd gone to the barge to try to make things right.

"I was with him that night, Joe. He didn't sleep. He didn't eat."

"He was upset about his friend Jacob," Joe said.

"He was upset about his friend Joe," she corrected. "You were all he talked about. He told me how the two of you met, how you became friends. He even told me about your high-school sweetheart, what was her name...Bitsy?"

"Betsy," Joe corrected automatically, smiling in memory. "He told you about that?"

"He was so pleased for you when it looked like things were working out. And he worried about you for weeks when it ended so badly."

"It wasn't that bad."

"Yeah, that's what you told him, but he didn't believe it for an instant. Why do you think he dug out your old football? For that matter, who do you think got it out of your house without asking for it?"

Joe's eyes widened with disbelief. "That was you?"

"Duncan's a little big to be much of a thief."

"I need a drink," he said, reaching for his favorite brand of scotch.

"Uh-uh," Amanda said, deftly taking it away. "I need you sober. So does he."

Joe glanced at the bottle with a sigh of regret, then checked his watch. "My last set will be over at ten. I'll call in one of the guys to close up, and then I'll go see Mac. But I can't promise you anything, Amanda," he warned. "I can't even promise he'll let me in."

"I have that covered," Amanda pressed a key into his hand. "I know you gave yours back, but he sort of forgot to ask me for mine..."

Joe shook his head, smiling. "You are incredible."

"So I've been told, Joe. So I've been told."

                                   

  
   


* * *

  
   


"What is it with that woman?" MacLeod ranted, pacing the width of his apartment with arms waving wildly. "What's it going to take to get her to mind her own business?"

Joe shrugged. "More than you've got, I think," he said.

"Look, Joe, this is none of your affair, all right? Go home."

"Sure," Joe said amiably. "But I warn you, if I can't make any progress with you, she's threatened to send up the newspaper guy on the corner."

MacLeod tried to glare at his Watcher, but thinking of the extent of Amanda's determination brought a half-smile to his lips that lightened his dark expression for a moment "She'd do it, too," he said.

"Right. So you might as well listen to me."

MacLeod sat on the couch and looked up at the mortal expectantly. "Go ahead. I don't know what you think you're going to accomplish, though."

"I didn't come here to be your guidance counselor, Mac. I just wanted to drop off a bit of information."

"If it's about Methos, I know he's gone. Amanda left five messages on my machine."

Joe shook his head and scratched at his short, greying beard. "I know. Before I came here, I did a bit of checking. I know where he is."

"Good for you," Mac said, refusing to be drawn out. "Maybe you can send him a postcard."

"I don't think so. He's gone Hunting."

MacLeod's head snapped up. "Methos?" he said, incredulous to the point of laughter. "Hunting what? A free beer? A good book?" He wouldn't precisely call the man a coward; it was just that most of the time, where fighting was, Methos was not.

"Funny, that," Joe said, eyebrows raised.

"Oh?"

"You don't think it's funny? How you can pick and choose which parts of Methos you believe in and which parts you don't?"

MacLeod looked at his friend reproachfully, eyes narrowing. "Joe. Not you, too."

"I just find it interesting. I mean, you accept that he's a guy who'll walk a mile in the rain for a free beer and doesn't sleep for days so he can finish a book. That doesn't conflict too much with your 'Methos is evil' theory. But you can't cope with the fact that he's also the guy who's pulled your ass out of the fire, what, three times, four? I can list them--"

"It's not that I can't accept it," Mac interrupted. "I know it's all the same Methos. But which one? Who's to say he's not still Methos the Horseman, playing some game only he knows about? Fooling us all, getting us to buy into his charming 'just a guy' act for his own reasons?"

Joe shook his head, casting a disappointed glance at his friend. "The fact that he lied about who he used to be doesn't necessarily mean he's lying about who he is."

"No. But it doesn't mean he's telling the truth, either. I keep going over things, everything I've done since I met him. And all of it - every bit - seems to have been of benefit to Methos."

"In what way?"

"Kalas wanted his head; I killed Kalas. He wanted Kristin dead; I took him to her and let him kill her. He wanted Kronos dead; I killed Kronos. What does that tell you?"

"Look at it another way, Mac. You wanted Kalas dead; he offered you his head, his Quickening, so you'd have the strength to take Kalas down. Kristin was going to kill your student; he warned you, and probably saved Richie's life. And when Kronos wanted to destroy Cassandra, you, Bordeaux, and God knows what else, he put his life on the line to stop it. Killed his brother to put an end to the Horsemen forever."

MacLeod shook his head angrily. "Damn it, Joe--I know what he did. I don't know why."

"He did it because he cares about you! The man has two over-riding goals in life; to stay alive, and to keep you alive. The rest of it, it's just window dressing!"

"I've spent too long seeing only what he wanted me to see, Joe. Look, I don't know what he is. I don't know who he is. Is he good, or is he evil? Is he Death, or is he my friend? He's lied too often. You all want me to shake his hand and pretend it's all over, but how can I do that when I can't trust him?"

Joe moved closer to his friend, a familiar look of determination hardening his eyes. "At the bar, when you told me about Methos, you said that in your gut you couldn't see him slaughtering innocent women and children."

"Yeah." MacLeod's voice was rough with the memory of those shattering days.

"So now, think about the mindset it would take to do those things. Think about how a man could do the things he did."

"That's all I've been thinking about, Joe."

"Okay. Now tell me -- from your gut -- could such a man have met, and loved, and been loved by a woman like Alexa, a woman who was dying? Could he have risked his career, his cover, his life, on the chance that an ancient legend might be able to save her? Could he have opened his heart to the pain he knew was coming to offer himself to her as a last gift before death?"

MacLeod whirled away from the Watcher, hands clenched into fists. That question -- those questions -- had been tormenting him for weeks. Trust Joe to know that. Trust Joe to ask them, and demand an answer. He'd seen the anguish in Methos' eyes when the two of them had spoken about the Methuselah Stone and the attack on Amanda; MacLeod knew that had been real, and deep. It seemed that for a time Methos had lost his veneer of sophistication, lost his habitual detachment. Replacing it was raw, aching need, an overwhelming passion to help the woman he loved, even if it meant destroying Adam Pierson to hunt down a legend.

"No," he said from behind clenched teeth, his voice almost a growl. The Methos he'd seen then was not an illusion or a lie; even in the midst of his anger, MacLeod couldn't deny that truth.

"I know you don't want to trust Methos, Mac, but you have to trust yourself. Your heart tells you that the man who did the killing three thousand years ago is not the man you befriended a year ago. If you can't believe in him, believe in yourself!"

"How can I resolve the two? How can a man change so much?"

Joe didn't back down. "How can you be the man who killed Sean Burns, who nearly took Richie's head, and at the same time be the man who helped save Cassandra from Kronos?"

"That's not fair!" MacLeod said loudly.

"Neither is what you're doing to Methos."

"How did I get to be the bad guy in this? I'm not the murderer in this equation!"

Joe's voice was lower now, so low MacLeod had to strain to hear him. "Neither is he. Not anymore. The only killing he's done in the past two hundred years has been for you, to help and protect you."

"I thought you didn't come here to be my shrink, Joe."

The other man nodded. "I didn't intend to." He smiled a little, then. "Force of habit."

MacLeod answered that with a ghost of a grin, and some of the tension in the room diffused. There was no such thing as a Joe Dawson without opinions. "So finish telling me what you came here to say," MacLeod said.

"That was it. Methos is out Hunting. You knew he'd dropped out of the Watchers. He's apparently dropped back into the Game, as well."

"Who is he after?"

"Have you ever heard of a man who calls himself Falcon?"

MacLeod fell heavily onto the couch, blood draining from his face as the implications struck home. "You're joking."

"He's using a backdoor into the Watcher database he thinks I don't know about. Falcon is the name he most recently looked up."

"Falcon is lethal, Joe. My god, the guy hunts for sport! And he's good at it! Methos is going to get himself killed."

"I don't think so. Falcon isn't the first he's gone after. Since he talked to you, Methos has gone after four immortals, all of them bad news. All of them killers. And two of them were good, Mac. Very good."

"And he beat them."

"Easily."

MacLeod shook his head. Part of him had wondered, since the first time he'd seen Methos fight, just how good he really was. MacLeod had bested him on several occasions, but each time he'd felt that it was a bit too easy. Now he had his confirmation; the man had been holding back. The thought of all the times he'd been at Methos' mercy was chilling.

But then, MacLeod reflected, I'm still alive. He was beginning to wonder what that said about the world's oldest living immortal.

"Mac, there's more," Joe said. "I...ah...I had him assigned a Watcher."

"You what?"

"Calm down!" Joe said, sharp-voiced with irritation. "Jason is a very close friend of mine, and I trust him completely. He reports only to me. All he knows is that Adam Pierson is immortal. Only I know that Adam is Methos. I had to keep an eye on him, Mac. What was I supposed to do?"

MacLeod sighed, and rubbed his eyes. "I guess you were supposed to assign him a Watcher. You just better pray the guy has the sense to stay well-hidden, or Methos will have him for breakfast. What has your man learned?"

Joe hesitated. MacLeod could see that he was wrestling with a decision, some bit of information he wasn't sure he should share. He'd seen the look too many times in the past not to recognize it. "Out with it, Joe. I know you have something more."

Joe relented at once, seeming almost grateful for the demand. "His Watcher got very close during the last fight. Close enough to hear what they said to each other. Adam -- Methos -- introduced himself in a very interesting manner."

"Tell me."

Joe pulled out a miniature tape-recorder, shrugging at MacLeod's expression of disbelief and disgust. "It's a living," he said defensively, rewinding. When the tape stopped, he pushed play; the sound of Methos' voice and another's filled the space between them.

"My name is Trevor. I take it you're here to challenge me?"

"Righto, old boy." The English lilt was familiar; the Methos style was unmistakable. "Ready?"

"I don't know you. Why the challenge? Did I kill someone you knew?"

"No, not so far. But you know what they say; an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. "

"A do-gooder, then? How delightful."

"Not a do-gooder," Methos' voice said above a clash of metal against metal. "Just a man with old debts."

Joe stopped the tape. The silence left behind was thick with implications.

"He's trying to make up for it," Mac finally said, astounded. "He's killing immortals who kill indiscriminately, to pay the debt he thinks he owes."

"That was my thought, too."

"My God, Joe...I sent him out to do it! Of all the idiotic--"

The Watcher frowned. "You told him to go hunt evil immortals?"

"I told him he wasn't paying for his crimes. I told him living with the guilt wasn't good enough."

Joe shook his head, his eyes and voice cold. "Sometimes, you are the best man I've ever known, you know that? But other times..." The Watcher sighed heavily, looking away. "You can be such a judgmental bastard, MacLeod."

The accusation in his friend's voice matched the accusation in his own mind. And he wasn't just thinking about Methos; he'd been a bastard to Joe, too. He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, and pushed his fingers into his hair, holding his head in his hands. Concern was coiling deep in his chest, but at the same time, something else was relaxing, breaking away.

Methos was in trouble. His friend was in trouble. He sat up, giving himself an inward shake. Finally, finally, he was able to see it clearly. The Methos who had been, and the Methos who was: Two different men who happened to share the same body and the same memories, just as he and the Duncan MacLeod of the Dark Quickening had.

Death on a horse...

...and Methos.

Separate. Divisible.

And Methos needed him.

MacLeod looked up at Joe, one corner of his mouth lifted in a smile. "Would you care to help a bastard help his friend?"

                                   

  
   


* * *

  
   


(Around 1 a.m. An alleyway on the Dark Side of Seacouver)

Methos was losing.

He'd tracked his quarry to a bar on the west side. A bit seedy-looking, but so were all the other bars lining Main Street, and at least the music was good. He'd stayed long enough for the Falcon to sense him, to see him, before stepping outside, back into the night.

The man had tracked him, then, away from the crowds. At one a.m. on a weeknight, even the wilder areas of the city were relatively quiet. Methos had found a protected alleyway between buildings a few streets over, and waited there until a flash of Presence warned him that his prey was near.

Falcon. An immortal who hunted men, not just other immortals, and not just because of the Game. He did it for pleasure. It was something Methos understood; it was someone he had been. This man, however, had experienced no epiphany, no change of character. He was as much Death as Methos had ever been, and it was going to be good to kill him. It was going to be like killing that part of himself he hated so deeply and so well.

At least, that was how he had planned it.

Methos was good -- in truth, he was very, very good. In the past few weeks, he'd come up against skilled fighters, but none who pressed him to the limit of his abilities. That was good, it was safe; Methos didn't want to try his limits. He didn't want to have to let slip the fragile control he was able to maintain -- just barely -- when wielding a sword. It would be too easy to let go, and descend into the blood-madness that had kept him alive so long; he didn't dare exercise all his skill.

And without that, without the full extent of his prowess, Falcon was a match for him.

So be it. He'd come to this place in search of absolution; if he couldn't find it in victory, perhaps he'd find it in death.

He didn't plan on making it easy, though. If Falcon wanted his head, he was going to have to work for it.

                                   

  
   


* * *

  
   


Mac heard the clash of swords before he felt the tingle of Presence; he left Joe behind, sprinting toward the source of both sensations. He didn't have to go far; in an alleyway just off the main thoroughfare, he found them.

His sword drawn, he advanced on the two men just in time to see Methos fall. The other man -- it had to be Falcon -- stood over him with sword raised for the killing blow, about to bring the blade down.

Methos crouched on his knees before Falcon, his eyes staring straight ahead, not even a tremor marring his perfect calm. His right hand still gripped his sword, but the point rested against the concrete as if he'd forgotten it was there.

A crazy thought -- He wants to die! -- flashed through his mind even as he strode forward.

Falcon paused at the sight of the intruders. "Whoever you are," he said, "You can't interfere."

Mac stopped in his tracks, anguish evident in every line of his face. "Don't do this," he said hoarsely.

At the sound of his voice, Methos turned his head just a little. His eyes filled with regret at the sight of his friend, but he said nothing.

"He challenged; he lost. His head is forfeit."

That could not be argued. MacLeod's eyes were fixed on those of Methos, their dark gazes locked together in a silent communication. The sound of careful steps, and the tapping of a cane, approached from behind him; he ignored it. "He's young," he lied to Falcon. "I've lived four hundred years. Spare his life, and I'm yours." The words came without thought and without regret. He'd sent his friend to this moment, this alleyway; he had to do whatever was necessary to bring him out of it.

"No!" Methos shouted, his voice mingling with Joe's cry of protest.

The Falcon only grinned, bringing the sword down to rest against Methos' neck. "Him first," he said to MacLeod. "Then you."

"Him first, and you'll die before he hits the ground," MacLeod corrected.

"This was a fair challenge," Falcon said, grinning. "You won't interfere until it's played out. All of it. Remember the rules?"

Mac knew it, knew he couldn't stop what was about to happen. He swallowed against a rising desperation. His eyes shifted to look at Methos, wanting the man to fight but knowing there was no way it could be done.

Methos offered a small smile that conveyed an abiding amusement at his own foolishness and something else....something unreadable. He raised a hand slowly, placed it inside his coat, just over his heart. "Is the debt paid, Highlander?" he asked softly.

Mac's eyes were burning, and he almost couldn't speak. He forced the words out anyway, past the dry ache in his throat. "The debt is paid," he said.

There would have been more, but Joe's voice interrupted him, coming from his right.

"You know what?" Mac turned at the wild note in Joe's voice, and was surprised by the nearly feral grin on his face. Never before had he seen his mortal friend smile that way, with a warmth that came from anger rather than kindness and with just the slightest trace of cruel pleasure. "I just realized something," Joe continued.

From inside his jacket, the Watcher pulled a gleaming .38 and drew a bead on Falcon's forehead. MacLeod watched him in disbelief, stunned beyond the capacity for action.

"I don't have to play by the rules," the Watcher said, and fired.

                                   

  
   


* * *

  
   


"Joe!" Methos stood over the body of his erstwhile opponent, a nasty-looking dagger that might have passed for a short sword gleaming dire promise in one hand while his primary blade hung loose in the other. Mac wondered just where he'd hidden the dagger; he was certain it hadn't been there a moment before. "You can't just--"

"Can't I? Looks like I just did." Joe moved closer, and nudged the body with the tip of his cane. "Not a bad shot, either." There was a small, dark hole inches above the corpse's nose. "How long do you think it'll take him to come around?"

"Long enough," Mac said. He gripped Joe by the back of his neck and pulled him into a rough embrace. "Joe," he said gruffly. "That wasn't exactly fair." He struggled for a tone of reproach, but gratitude won out. "Thank you," he added quietly. "That was too close."

Joe smiled, and reached up to clasp Mac's shoulder. "My pleasure," he said softly.

Methos was shaking his head in disbelief, gesturing at them with the point of his sword. "The two of you have just broken every rule in the book, and now you're bonding over it?"

Mac spared a half-smile. "Don't be so conservative," he said.

Methos cast a dark glance in Mac's direction. "If you could have waited two minutes longer to play Lord Protector, Falcon here would have been about a foot shorter." He waved the dirk in front of him, its edge gleaming in the light from a nearby street lamp. "I wouldn't let Kalas take my head; you honestly think I was going to give it to this bozo? This was a fair challenge, single combat between immortals, and you tried to stop it. And you, Joe!" he continued, shifting his gaze to the mortal. "'Observe, record, never interfere'...? You just shot an immortal!"

Joe shrugged. "So? I was off duty. And it's not as if it's the first time," he added with a quick, amused glance at MacLeod. He hefted the weapon again. "It won't be the last time, either, if we don't get out of here."

Mac grinned; it wasn't a pleasant expression. "Joe, take Methos to the car. Don't let him out of your sight. In fact, take him back to the loft and stay there until I arrive."

"What are you going to do?" Joe demanded.

"I'll catch up," he said softly. "I have a few things to take care of."

"Mac," Methos began.

"Don't argue with me on this, Adam," Mac replied, eyes flashing a hard warning. "Just go. I'll deal with you later. And Joe? If he tries to get away from you, shoot him." His grin was answered immediately by his Watcher.

Methos' eyes widened briefly, and for a moment it looked as if he had something to say. One look, however, stilled the words on his tongue. He allowed Joe to take his arm, and they started for the mouth of the alley.

As the two men walked away, Mac moved to lean against one wall, and settled in to wait.

                                   

  
   


* * *

  
   


Methos stepped out of MacLeod's bathroom, freshly showered and changed into a borrowed t-shirt and the only pair of sweats he could find with a tie he could cinch tight around his waist. Both were black; both were about three sizes too large.

At the moment, Methos didn't care. He was more interested in being alive, warm, and among familiar things. He wasn't inclined to test Joe's resolve to keep him at the loft; his ardor for battle had faded quite a bit since MacLeod and his Watcher had intruded on his Hunt.

Now he spared a moment to look around the room, trying to become accustomed to the idea that he was here, and not fighting for his life in a dark alleyway.

Arms folded, hands gripping his elbows tightly, as if against cold, Methos wandered between the different areas of the single room. In the kitchen, he ran a hand over a countertop, fidgeted for a moment with a rack of cooking utensils. In the living area, he slid a finger down a stack of CD's, noting titles and artists; his lips quirked briefly upward, remembering who had called who conservative back in the alley. From there he moved to the bed and sat down on its edge, fingering the heavy olivine covering as he sank into the softness of the mattress.

"You could take a rest," Joe said from his chair. "You look like you need it." The mortal looked deceptively relaxed; he might not be able to rise with speed, but Methos didn't doubt Dawson could turn fast enough to nail him with the .38 on his lap should any such action be required.

"You wouldn't really shoot me with that thing, would you, Joe?" he asked, smiling a little.

Joe's eyebrows climbed up his forehead. "Oh, I don't know," he answered in a drawl. "I'm starting to understand why people call these things 'equalizers.'"

Methos frowned slightly. He wasn't entirely sure Joe was joking.

There was no time for further discussion; the elevator geared up, and a flash of Presence brought Methos to his feet. Dawson stood up, too. Not for nothing has this man been a Watcher all his life, Methos reflected. He knows the look.

The two of them faced the elevator, Methos with his sword, Joe with his gun.

"Relax," a voice called up the elevator shaft. "It's just me."

"Yeah, well, it's just us, too," Joe answered, putting away his weapon.

Methos was a little slower to lay down his sword.

"Put it away, Methos," Joe said reassuringly, laying a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Mac's here, which means Falcon is a head shorter now. The deadly part of this evening is over."

Methos took a deep breath, nodded. With trembling hands, he lay his sword on the coffee table and sat down on the couch, resting his head in his hands. Seconds ticked past as he tried to center himself, to find his strength. "I am so tired of this," he said softly.

"So am I."

Methos' head snapped up. MacLeod was standing in front of his chair, a bottle of beer in each hand. Joe had gone back down with the elevator.

MacLeod held out one of the bottles; Methos accepted it. "Thanks."

MacLeod settled into a chair across from the couch, taking a long drink from his own bottle. Silence - then the question Methos knew was coming.

"What in the name of all that's holy did you think you were doing, Methos?" he demanded.

"Atoning," he said. "After our conversation, I thought perhaps it was time to try a more active penance."

MacLeod shook his head, his expression half angry, half amazed. "You could have been killed."

"I was about to take him when you so rudely interrupted. And anyway, what is it you always say? Death before dishonor?" Methos tried for an amused tone, but the weariness in his voice overwhelmed the humor.

"Yeah, and every time I say it, you laugh."

"It's not sounding so funny these days." Methos straightened, stood up, and took his bottle into the kitchen to set it on the counter. "Thanks for the loan of the clothes, Mac," he said when he returned. He took his sword from the coffee table and rested the blade easily over his shoulder. "I think it's time I went home."

"Wait."

MacLeod's voice was gruff, but the word was clearly a request rather than an order. "Please stay," he added in the same tone.

Methos let his head fall forward, feeling the taut pull of muscles he couldn't relax in his neck and shoulders. It wasn't precisely pain, but it was more distant from pleasure than he usually cared to be. He turned back toward the living area, reaching up with one hand to squeeze some of the tightness out of his shoulders. "You don't have to worry, MacLeod. I'm not going to go out Hunting again. Further rescues will be unnecessary." As unnecessary as this one was, he added silently, a little irritated that MacLeod had cut the battle short. A few more seconds would have seen his dagger in Falcon's belly, and Falcon's head rolling on the street.

"That's not it."

Methos sighed. "Look, I'm leaving," he said. "The loft, the city, the state, maybe even the continent. I assure you, this is the last time Methos the Great and Powerful will intrude upon your perfect life."

MacLeod closed the space between them. Methos took a step back--not precisely out of fear, but not far from it. "Is that what you want?" he demanded.

"It's what I have to do. If I stay here, I'm going to drive myself insane. No offense, MacLeod, but you've ruined my life." Methos laughed without humor. "I was doing just fine for myself before you came along. Sometimes I was almost able to forget. At least I can say I've learned something about myself; fifty centuries old I am, and just as much an idiot as I ever was. Getting involved with you and your friends was a mistake."

"Since when is having friends a mistake?"

"Since the first person I've really given a damn about in a few thousand years decided I was some kind of monster," Methos snapped. His eyes bore into MacLeod's, anger replacing some of the weariness. "Usually that's a good indicator that it's time for an extended vacation."

"Time to run away, you mean."

"Call it what you like, I can't stay here." He tried to reign in his emotions; they flashed back and forth between anger and pain so quickly he couldn't even keep track. "I don't expect you to understand."

MacLeod gestured vaguely with his bottle. "Explain it to me," he said. "I'm listening."

"Fine." Methos hurled his sword onto MacLeod's coffee table and began to pace the width of the room. "You're not going to like it, though, I promise you."

"Try me."

Methos reclaimed his beer from the kitchen and sat down abruptly. He wasn't sure how to start, but he knew he wasn't going to be able to stay silent. "Let me tell you what the nights are like," he said.

MacLeod's eyes clouded with uncertainty, but he nodded.

"The lights go out, and I see the blood running from my victims' bodies and soaking into the sand. I hear their screams. I see their fear. And I'm filled with such rage... such hatred, MacLeod." He stopped, shaking, his hands squeezing the cold bottle so tightly his knuckles were white with strain.

"Go on," MacLeod said quietly.

"It hasn't happened every night for the past three thousand years, but often enough. Too often. I rest there in my bed hating the killer I was. Not just for the killing, either, but for lacking the courage to pay the final price. I know what I deserve for the crimes I've committed, MacLeod; I just don't have the guts to do it. You were right about that. I deserve to die, but I want to live."

MacLeod started to speak, but Methos waved him into silence. "There's more," he said. "This is the part you're not going to like." When Mac remained silent, Methos took another deep breath and continued.

"One day, an immortal walked into my home with a sword and knew me, somehow, for who I was. And I was surprised -- I was stunned -- by his reasons for being there. You see, he didn't want to take my head; he wanted to save it."

"I remember," MacLeod said.

"Yeah, if you'd only known then." Methos ran a hand through his hair, the neutrality in MacLeod's voice cutting deep. "He did save my life. He even saved me from the closest thing to suicide possible for our kind. And he let me into his world."

"You didn't give me a lot of choice."

Methos smiled at that, remembering. "You were the first person who'd called me 'Methos' in more years than I could count, and you helped me when I was nothing to you but a stranger with a legend's name. You had honor, which I sorely lacked. You had courage, which I didn't even really want. And you had friends. Do you know how rare that is among our kind?"

"Too rare."

"Yes, it is. You were something new under the sun, MacLeod. You intrigued me."

"Nice to be appreciated."

"So here it is. I moved into your orbit, and you accepted it. I knew it didn't count; I knew the person you accepted wasn't me. It was Adam Pierson, not Methos. Adam Pierson, world's oldest living 'guy'. I knew that you would have no respect or friendship to offer one of the Four Horsemen, no matter that I might have changed...was changing. How could you? There are no shades of grey in the MacLeod philosophy.

"So I lied. Hid the truth, anyway, which I knew you'd take to be the same thing, and then later I lied to cover that. But it wasn't about deceiving you, Mac," he finished softly.

"What was it about, then?" MacLeod asked, genuinely curious.

"It was about saving myself. Not physically, though I'll admit you're handy to have around in that regard. I've lived the better part of my life as a student, a researcher. Adam Pierson isn't that far off the mark, you know. He's who I'd like to have been, if I were mortal. I've always had a love of books, of history, of fine things. You, though -- you yanked me out of my scholarly pursuits and made me look outside of myself. You made me notice people, care about them. I didn't know how to do that before you came along, and I didn't think I could do it on my own if you left again."

Methos sighed, shaking his head. "After we became friends, you know how I banished the faces in my dreams? I'd lie there in the dark, and I'd say to myself, 'Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod calls me his friend.' You see? Everyone knows Duncan MacLeod doesn't hang out with bad guys. Your friendship... It made me think I might not be so bad, after all."

"I guess I should feel lucky to be so understood," Mac said. "I don't. You take a lot on faith, Methos."

"I'm not often wrong about people."

"How nice for you."

Methos looked away. "Kronos wanted me to kill you. You know why, don't you? It wasn't that sordid little ranger business you two had together. It was because you were my friend, and he knew it. He knew that as long as you were alive, I'd never be completely his."

"And if I'd died that day at the submarine base? If he'd won, instead of me?"

Methos gave a short, barked laugh, lips quirking into half of a grin. "Moot point. If he'd killed you, I'd have been next. When I raised a blade against Silas, I signed my own death warrant."

"He was good. He could've beaten me, maybe, on another day."

"No. The first time, maybe. The last, no. You were too angry to lose, I'd seen to that." Methos shook his head, remembering the flames he'd cast about them to break up that first fight. "You know that rule about not interfering with a challenge once it's begun, Mac? Turns out it's more of a guideline..."

They laughed over that, the easiest moment that had passed between them since Cassandra had returned and turned their lives inside out. For a few moments, the two men held each other's gaze, each trying to find a way to hold on to the familiar warmth. It faded slowly; there was more to be said.

"You were right about the plan," Methos continued softly, breaking the tenuous connection. "Mostly right, anyway. The things I said to you at the car --"

MacLeod shook his head sharply. "I don't want to talk about that."

"We have to, Mac." Methos knew that he'd have to speak quickly to get the words out past his own reticence; Mac's interruptions made it too easy to back away from the truth. "Please," he said quietly. "If you're going to understand, we have to. The facts were true, Mac, but the way I told you... I had to get you away from me. If I couldn't find you, Kronos could hardly expect me to kill you. Yes, I killed. Yes, I killed a lot. But did I revel in it the way I told you I had? Bathe in the blood of women and children, laugh as I cut them down? No. That part was a lie. I hated myself for telling it, and I hated you for believing it. I liked killing when it came in clean battle. But the rest? No. There was no pleasure in that."

"Then why, Methos? Why do it at all if you didn't want to?"

"Kronos wanted it. He wanted a strong right arm, a brother, a strategist...and if I wanted to live, I had to be everything he wanted. Don't you see? It's what I've always told you. Live. Grow stronger. Fight another day. At first, I thought there'd be a time to slip away from him. I waited for it, prayed for it. Weeks turned into months, then years, then centuries. I became...complacent. The killing became routine. If I did what Kronos wanted, I had all I could desire. Books. Women. Other pleasures... Nothing was denied to me. Eventually...I didn't even want to leave."

"But you did, eventually," MacLeod said softly.

"I was angry when we spoke at the car. That was part of it. I'd hoped that you knew me better than to think I could still be that man. I'd hoped you'd be able to see that I had changed, and when you couldn't...I wanted to hurt you. Part of it was to get you away, so Kronos wouldn't know I couldn't kill you, but part of it was to hurt you the way I hurt. When you told me we were through, I was glad, and I was shattered. It meant you'd stay away from me...but then again...it meant you had no idea who I was. It meant our friendship had been a lie from the beginning, a lie we told each other and pretended was true."

"I knew you were lying." MacLeod smiled at Methos' look of dismay. "I'm not a total idiot, Methos. It took me a while, but I went over and over the things that you said, trying to fit them into what I knew about you. I couldn't. Eventually, I realized that you were either lying then, for those few minutes, or you'd been lying all the months before. I'm not that bad a judge of character."

"I don't know, Mac. I make a hell of a first impression."

"You're certainly a lot more complicated than you pretend to be."

"Occupational hazard," Methos said, grinning. Another shared moment; another chink in the barriers.

"And the plan...?"

"I thought I'd driven you away, and I knew you could take care of Cassandra. I was planning to run. But when I found Cassandra at the base, I knew you weren't far behind. I had to make a new plan, and I did. And it worked."

"You had it all mapped out? Everything that happened?"

"Two things I didn't anticipate. First, the virus. Even I couldn't have dreamt up that kind of insanity. And I didn't think he'd send both Silas and Caspian after you. I gave up hope when Kronos told me that." Methos' eyes clouded, turned inward as he remembered those dark moments when he'd believed MacLeod was dead.

"So you did expect him to take Cassandra while we met at Elysium Church."

Methos met MacLeod's eyes and held them, nodded sharply. "I did."

"She was bait. To bring me there."

"To bring you to kill Kronos. Yes."

"Why?" MacLeod's voice conveyed both pain and confusion, the cry of a child hurt beyond its understanding.

Methos took a deep, steadying breath. It was a moment before he could speak in the face of his own betrayal. "I couldn't do it myself. I couldn't kill him. I had the skill, I had the strength. I didn't have the will."

"And so you brought me to do your dirty work."

"I couldn't do it myself," he repeated. And then, the words that seemed to haunt him. "Somebody had to."

Methos watched as MacLeod tried to assimilate that knowledge. Mac's eyes were closed, his nostrils flaring as he brought in deep, cleansing breaths. He was still, but Methos could sense the tremor that ran through him; a slight vibration, just beneath the skin, as muscles tensed with the effort not to move. "She could have died, Methos," the Scotsman said finally, his voice low and rough. "They could have killed her."

She'd never been safer. Of course, there was no way to explain that to MacLeod, no way he'd understand. Kronos didn't want to kill Cassandra; he wanted to watch Methos do it. Just as he wanted to watch him kill MacLeod, and every other thing he'd ever cared about. Kronos wanted his soul, and he meant to have it completely. Only at the end, when Silas was posted outside her cage, had there been any danger; and even then, it had been too late. Caspian was gone, only Methos could pass along the order. And Methos, in spite of his love for his brother Silas, had no intention of letting that order be carried out.

"Now you know," he said softly. "I risked us all. I weighed our lives versus the evil Kronos could inflict if he were left unchecked, and I judged that losing them would be worth it if in doing so we could rid the world of the Horsemen. It wasn't my decision to make, but I made it. I couldn't have made any other."

"And you wanted me to know this?"

"Yes. I wanted you to know about the Horsemen, I wanted you to know I'd been one of them, and I wanted you to know what part I played when the four of us came together again. And now I want you to tell me: Is it too much? Judge me," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Am I evil, MacLeod?"

"I can't judge you, Methos!" MacLeod said sharply. "I can't sentence you; I can't absolve you or punish you! I'm not your priest, and I'm not your judge and jury!"

Methos looked at him calmly, sadly, then spoke into the silence that spun out between them. His eyes were unreadable. "Aren't you?" he asked softly, finally. "You do a fair impression."

                                   

  
   


* * *

  
   


The words hit Mac like bullets, projectiles of truth. Methos was right; he had judged him. If Methos had chosen him as a moral barometer, it was because that was how MacLeod had presented himself. Boyscout, his friends sometimes called him. He'd always liked it; it made him feel he was keeping to his chosen path, navigating his life with honor.

An honor that had two edges, it seemed. One to cut himself; one to cut the people he cared about. He thought of all the times he'd fought Amanda over her light-fingered habits, heists that hurt no one but offended his sense of morality. The times he'd turned on Joe -- a man who'd offered him friendship and asked only for a share in his life -- and accused him, dismissed him, cast him off.

And he thought of how close the man on his couch had come to dying earlier in the evening in an idiotic attempt to live up to the standards of Duncan MacLeod. Methos had saved Richie's life for no other reason than that Richie was his friend; had saved Mac's own life, saved his very soul after the Dark Quickening.

And for things Methos had done in a different world, in millennia past, as a different man, MacLeod had unwittingly set him on a path to destruction.

Unwittingly? he asked himself in the quiet of his mind. Or did you know how close he was to the edge? Know what he might do?

Mac looked up at Methos, really looked at him. He took in the short, wind-whipped dark hair and the deep, olivine eyes so filled with weariness and hurt. The narrow, slumped shoulders swathed in one of his old t-shirts. The man seemed so fragile; too fragile to have survived five thousand years, but there was a strength in him like old iron. Mac had seen it. He saw it now, though Methos didn't seem able to access much of it at the moment.

"You truly feel that way?" he said finally, still not quite comprehending his importance to Methos. "You value my opinion that highly?"

"I value your friendship that highly," Methos said quietly.

Mac hesitated only a moment, then stood and moved to the couch, sitting inches away from Methos. He looked straight ahead, eyes on the far wall, as if he might find the right words written there.

Finally, he spoke. "Then I guess I'd better give it to you," he said, his voice low.

Methos' head snapped up, his eyes wide. "What did you say?"

Mac looked at Methos with kind eyes. It felt good to let go of the doubts. "I said that if you value my friendship so highly, it's yours."

"Just like that?" Methos' eyes were narrowing now, as if he couldn't quite trust what he'd heard.

"You were right," Mac said. "I judged you, and it wasn't my right. I wasn't there. I wasn't hurt by your actions."

Methos nodded in sudden, hateful comprehension. "I see. So it's not actually, technically friendship I'm getting. It's the warm glow of being right. That's really more your cup of tea than mine," he said coldly, standing and moving away from MacLeod.

Mac flinched at his expression. "Methos, that's not what I meant!"

"Oh? Then what did you mean? Oh, wait. I know. I get your pity, too. No thank you."

"Pity? Are you serious?"

"Oh, yes. I'm deadly serious. Poor, broken Methos. I should have expected this; I can't believe I'm actually surprised. Of course, you would have to offer forgiveness, wouldn't you! After all, it's the charitable thing to do." Methos laughed bitterly. "I'm such a fool. Have a nice life, MacLeod," he said, snatching up his sword for the second time and striding toward the elevator.

MacLeod acted without hesitation; his sword was at Methos' throat before the smaller man had taken three steps. Methos was stopped cold, standing like a pale statue with the blade millimeters from his jugular.

"You're not going anywhere," Mac said. His voice was dark, velvet with danger, and he pressed the sword closer. Methos took a step back, then another, retreating before the blade. It was a trick Methos had used on him once, and Mac was glad of the opportunity to turn the tables. In not too many steps, the couch blocked any further movement, and a gentle shove toppled Methos into the cushions. Looking down, the point of the sword still close enough to threaten, Mac smiled. "You're going to sit right there, and listen for a change."

                                   

  
   


* * *

  
   


It was a smile Methos recognized. He'd seen it in a Parisian church when his friend-turned-enemy had held a sword to his throat on an earlier occasion and come within inches of taking his head on holy ground. He'd seen it again just after MacLeod had killed Sean Burns. He'd seen it for what he'd prayed was the last time beside his car, near the Spring, where he'd taken Mac to confront the evil that had overtaken him.

Seeing it again now was somewhat disconcerting.

"You know that offer I made you, back when we were fighting Kalas?" Methos said carefully, keeping a close eye on the hand that held the katana.

"You offered me your head, so we could defeat him together." Mac answered. "So?"

"So, the offer has expired, Mac..."

MacLeod gave a quick, pleasantly vicious grin. "I'll make a deal. You get to keep your head, and I get your word right now that you won't try to leave here until we both agree it's time."

"You want my parole?" Methos almost laughed, the idea was so archaic. In times long past, it had been a custom among honorable men that noble prisoners would be allowed to move freely about their jailer's homes or forts -- if they gave oath that they would behave as gentlemen and not try to escape. Trust MacLeod to know of it; Methos wondered momentarily how many "hosts" the man had offered his own parole. That he should have ever violated that oath was beyond the scope of possibility, and it was somewhat amusing to think of Duncan MacLeod held, literally, a prisoner of his own honor.

"That's exactly what I want. It's either that, or my blade stays right where it is. And I warn you, I tend to talk with my hands."

The thought of MacLeod's sword perched where a particularly enthusiastic gesture could sever his head from his body was more than enough motivation for Methos. "Fine," he said. "You've got my word. Now get that thing away from my neck." He felt it wise not to mention how seldom his offered parole had held him in the past.

Mac's smile changed then, became something infinitely less threatening. Methos wondered if he knew where he'd come by the previous expression, then decided to leave it alone. Things were bad enough without bringing Mac's evil twin into the discussion.

Abruptly granted run of the loft, Methos used it to fetch another beer from the kitchen.

"What about me?" MacLeod said when he returned to the living area.

Methos let slip an amused sideways glance. It was so easy to fall back into the old banter. "Yeah, you can have one," he said. "They're in the fridge."

The dark look MacLeod returned him on his way to the kitchen was familiar. It brought back double-edged memories; the way things had been, and couldn't be again. He sighed softly, and started drinking. It would take much more than a few beers to relieve the tension in the room, but as such things went, it wasn't a bad start.

"So," he said, leaning back. "MacLeod. Since I doubt you're keeping me here because of my charming personality, why don't you say whatever it is you have to say so we can end this and get out of here?"

"You and I," Mac said calmly, taking a seat at the opposite end of the couch, "are not ending anything. Except," he added as Methos would have spoken, "the pretense that either of us will be of any use to anyone with this unsettled. Agreed?"

"You're the one with the sword, MacLeod," Methos said dryly, gesturing with his bottle at the katana.

"Ah." Mac lay the sword on the coffee table, next to the one Methos had brought. "Sorry."

"I'm over it," Methos said, leaning back against the cushions of the couch.

MacLeod took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Whatever it was he wanted to say, Methos could see it was costing him dear to say it. Or to try to say it, he thought with irritation. MacLeod seemed to have lost the ability to speak.

Finally, words came. "What I've been trying to say to you, Methos... God, I don't know why I bother, but... Look. You asked me if I could accept what you'd done. I'm telling you. Yes, I can. I have. We can put it behind us, now."

The words Methos had wanted to hear. Needed to hear. And now, the moment come, it was so hard to trust them, so hard to believe. He'd thought the Mac's acceptance would heal him, give him a sense of peace, but instead it cut deep. Drew blood. God, it hurt to hear those words and not be freed. He found he couldn't speak around the pain; instead he just shook his head, eyes brimming with all the emotions he'd pent up over centuries, the guilt. The shame, when he'd realized how deeply, deeply evil he'd allowed himself to become, all in the name of survival.

"Methos," MacLeod said. He laid a hand on Methos' shoulder, squeezing hard. "Methos, I'm telling you, your friendship is of value to me also. What you did is in the past. I want it to stay there. I can't do without you, my friend. Don't make me."

The knowledge came too late, far too late to make any difference. He'd fought, he'd bled, for this man. This friend. He'd struggled with himself and with MacLeod's code of honor, desperately trying to find his way to absolution. If MacLeod could accept him, he'd thought, maybe it would mean the end of the pain. Maybe it would mean the debt had finally, finally been paid in full. Maybe it could be over, if MacLeod, with his boyscout sense of honor and justice, could know him through and through, and still call him friend.

And now, the deepest cut of all. What he had wanted had come to pass, and it made no difference.

His eyes were blank as he stared at MacLeod, his features slack with shock. "It doesn't matter," he murmured softly, shaking his head.

"What do you mean? You've hounded me to death, Methos, you've torn me apart to bring me to a place where I can forgive, and you say it means nothing?" MacLeod sounded angry, but there was something else in his voice...fear?

"I thought it would go away," Methos said. His voice was soft, rough. "MacLeod, I thought your acceptance could take it away....but it can't. Nothing can. How could I not know that?"

"Take it ...." A pause, as understanding came. "Good lord, man. You thought I could take away your guilt? Are you daft? No man can do that, no man but yourself."

"I can't!" Methos pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, blinding himself. Shutting himself away.

MacLeod moved, then, and knelt on the floor. He reached up, and pulled Methos' hands away, gripping them in his own. "You must," he said. "I can only let go of my own anger and blame, Methos. You have to let go of your own, now. Right now."

"I can't," he said again, his voice barely a whisper. There was too much. The guilt was his baseline; without it, he wouldn't know how to be Methos. As MacLeod's clan had defined him, so had Methos' guilt made him who he was. Every step he'd taken was a step away from Kronos. From Death. He'd become his own opposite, a reflection -- insubstantial. Nothing.

And maybe nothing was what he deserved to be.

Methos looked into the dark eyes so intent upon his own, and asked the unthinkable.

"The judgment has been made, MacLeod," he said. "Can you carry out the sentence?"

The words were so soft MacLeod had to strain to hear them; when he understood, his eyes went wide with shock.

Then they narrowed to anger.

The blow was stunning, knocking Methos from the couch and onto the floor, nearly breaking his jaw. "Get up," MacLeod said, his sword now at the ready. He stood over Methos, dark eyes filled with dire promise. Methos scrambled to his feet, and backed away. He'd never seen MacLeod strike in anger until this moment. And he was still coming.

Methos edged behind the couch, putting the most solid piece of furniture in the room between them. "Mac," he began carefully.

"Shut up," MacLeod growled. "Not another word. You want to die? You hate yourself that much? Then pick up your damned sword and fight."

Each word was a blow, each word drove anger deeper into his heart. Methos' lips drew together in a thin, white line. "I'm not going to fight you, MacLeod," he said, each word bitten off with icy precision.

"Oh, yes. You're going to fight, or I'm going to kill you where you stand and tell every immortal I know that Methos, world's oldest man, died a coward, begging for his life. Should make a stunning conclusion to your Chronicle, no?" MacLeod's expression was grim, but a smile of dark entertainment darted over his lips. "Take up your sword!" he commanded.

"I will not." Methos sat down on the edge of the couch, his eyes glaring up into those of the battle-mad Scot. "Go ahead, do what you have to," he said. "Just be careful you don't ruin your couch."

"I don't give a damn about the couch," MacLeod said.

And then he proved it, his katana flashing bright in the golden lamplight before driving deep into Methos' chest.

                                   

  
   


* * *

  
   


Damn.

Mac hadn't meant to actually kill him, but Methos had goaded him into it -- probably expecting him to be so angry he'd go for the head. Mac had planned to threaten again, to show Methos exactly what it would feel like to be as close to death as he seemed to want to be. This...

Well, this was a little bit closer than he'd planned to take him.

And he was a little concerned about the couch. He wasn't particularly pleased about having shredded one of his favorite t-shirts, either. Shaking his head, Mac pulled the ruined shirt over Methos' head and used it to swab most of the blood off of the leather cushions.

After a few minutes' consideration, MacLeod sighed and took care of the rest of it, lifting Methos by the shoulders and running a damp towel around the entrance and exit wounds. Close inspection of the rapidly healing damage reassured him even as it conjured a trace of guilt; a look at the hollowed cheeks and pale skin made him feel like nothing so much as a bully. A moment later, though, he laughed softly to himself. Smaller he might be, but the man lying dead on his couch was no victim. After dumping the newly-clean body unceremoniously across the foot of his bed, he set about turning his home into a demilitarized zone.

Mac didn't want to be tempted to use his own blade again, and it didn't seem prudent to leave Methos' sword where it could be easily reached, either. Taking the man's duster from its hook near the door, he felt around the lining for whatever provision Methos had made for his weapon.

His hand connected with something solid, and his eyes widened in amazement as he pulled from the coat not only the dagger he'd seen earlier, but also a darkly malevolent pistol, complete with silencer. He thought it quite likely the same weapon Methos had used on him weeks earlier to prevent him from fighting Stephen Keane.

"Dear Lord, Methos," he muttered, rolling his eyes. "A sword, a dagger, and a gun? How many times did you think you'd have to kill the man?" He shook his head, and replaced all three weapons. Apparently, Methos had survived for five thousand years by walking around in his own private armory. Mac made a mental note never to fly anywhere with Methos. He must be hell on airport security.

Twenty minutes of work and relative peace later, all visible weapons had been removed to closets and cupboards and all traces of the confrontation had been scrubbed out of existence. If I've learned anything in 400 years of immortality, MacLeod reflected, a touch of black humor breaking through the grisly moment, it's how to get blood out of anything. A groan from the other end of the room warned that the final piece of evidence was reviving.

Showtime.

                                   

  
   


* * *

  
   


Recovery.

Blankness, grey, silence....and then a point of light. A sound. The heart beat once, then again, and then fell into its normal rhythm. A searing pain as air rushed back into still-healing lungs. A thousand needles pricking a thousand nerves throughout the body as life returned to dormant capillaries and blood, having begun to pool in the lowest points of the body, took up its remembered flow.

Exhalation, and then another breath. Consciousness, unwelcome so soon, returned as electricity sparked between synapses and neurotransmitters resumed their duties.

Methos lived again.

"Oh, god..." he said, coughing a bit on the last word. His hand moved involuntarily to the source of the pain, surprised to find his skin whole. Five thousand years, countless deaths, and it still came as something of a shock to find himself breathing and intact when every instinct told him he was dead.

A shadow loomed over him, carrying something that smelled warm and sweet. He kept his eyes closed, and felt a strong hand behind his neck, lifting his head as the rim of a mug was pressed to his lips. He drank, sipping slowly. Hot, honeyed tea. Mint, he thought, frowning. Mint and...

"...Apple?" he croaked, voice still rough with the ravages of his recent demise. "That's your idea of tea? It tastes like shampoo."

"Special recipe," MacLeod answered, setting the cup aside and helping the man to a sitting position. "How do you feel?"

"Like an animated corpse."

"More so than usual?"

Methos didn't grace the quip with a response. Instead, he answered with a question of his own. "Why didn't you finish me?"

"Have you ever heard of Quickening insurance?"

MacLeod waited patiently for Methos to catch on. "No...?" he said, cautiously questioning. After a moment of silence, his patience was rewarded with a slight chuckle and half of a smile. "I hadn't thought of that," Methos said. "You want to be careful, Mac. At this late age, growing a sense of humor could be traumatic."

"My computer doesn't have a surge protector, either," Mac added, still grinning.

"Get with the times, MacLeod," Methos said dryly. The pain was lessening, and with it the warmth of returning life. "And get me a shirt, will you?"

"I live to serve," MacLeod answered.

Methos winced at that. The words were too familiar. "You live to serve me," a voice whispered in the dark of his mind. His voice. He shook his head, pushing the memories away. "In that case, make it a sweater."

Soft, cable-knit warmth struck him in the chest; he pulled the cream-colored sweater over his head, frowning at the inches of material that hung past his fingertips. He pushed the sleeves up his arms with a scowl.

MacLeod sat next to him on the bed. "I'd just as soon leave the swords out of this from now on," he said, his expression turning serious.

"That gets my vote," Methos said wryly. Even fully healed, he could feel a phantom ache in the vicinity of his sternum.

"Good. Nobody's killing anybody for the rest of the evening?"

"Oh, sure, now that it's my turn. Fine, fine," he added, noting Macleod's glare. "I need a drink."

"Can I have a moment of gravity here? There are some things I need to say," MacLeod said. "Things you need to hear."

"I think we've said just about everything there is to say, Mac," Methos said. "I did terrible things. You forgive me. I can't forgive myself. That ticks you off. Have I left anything out?"

"Yes, but thanks for the synopsis. You left out the part about not being Methos the Horseman any longer. And the part about saving the people of Bordeaux, maybe the world, regardless of how you went about it."

"Tell that to the guy in my mirror. Reflection of a reflection, that guy. All I am now is just the negative of who I used to be, Mac. You know what that makes me?"

"Different. Separate."

"It makes me _him_, MacLeod. It makes me the same."

"It makes you an answer. You know, you keep telling me I think with my morals instead of my brain, but you do the same thing. And you're supposed to know better, Methos! It only took me a few weeks to figure out you're not a killer. How many thousands of years have you been working on it now? Two, three?"

"If I'm not a killer, then what am I?"

MacLeod gripped Methos' wiry shoulders and shook him. "You're my friend!" he growled. "Joe's friend. Hell, even Amanda likes you."

"Likes Adam Pierson, maybe, but that's not who I am, remember? I don't get to be that person." MacLeod's own words, thrown back at him. It was almost poetic.

MacLeod threw up his hands in disgust. "It's like talking to a wall. It's worse. Walls don't make smart-ass remarks and think they're being cute."

"Ah, but they're not as charming as I am, either."

"Not as charming as you think you are, that I'll grant you."

Methos sighed. "It's late, MacLeod," he said. "I'm hungry, I'm tired, and I've just come back from the dead. I'm finding it a bit of a challenge to maintain a positive outlook."

"Fine. I'll make breakfast, you listen. Deal?"

"I'm not sure I'm that hungry."

The look MacLeod turned on him was filled with dire promise; Methos got the hint and stretched out on the bed, fingers laced behind his head. "Can I listen from here?"

"Yes, if you'll promise to stay awake."

"If you can't keep my attention, that's your problem," Methos answered.

The sarcasm created a distance between them; Methos used it liberally, fighting for enough space to hide his inner turmoil. He felt as if his soul had been scraped raw, every emotion intensified and painfully obvious. He wanted MacLeod on the other side of the room, his mind on finding a suitably sharp remark with which to parry; he wanted him distracted. Methos needed time to build the walls back up, and fortify them.

He closed his eyes, and cleared his mind. It was a survival technique, one that had served him well in his five millennia of life. All that was painful, all that was real, all that was Methos, he pushed away, back into the dimmest recesses of his heart. He cleared the way, and then let someone else in to fill the empty spaces. Someone familiar, comfortable; not loved, but not quite despised. Adam Pierson... a man infinitely younger, less secure, unsure of himself. Quiet, bookish, unassuming. Safe.

He opened his eyes, and nearly jumped out of his skin. Mac was there, watching him with folded arms from the foot of the bed. "What?" he demanded, surprise battling with irritation.

"It's not going to work, Methos. I've seen you do it too many times. I'm only making breakfast for two, so why don't you see if, between the two of you, you can find someplace else for Adam to be?"

Methos' eyes narrowed. "Perceptive today, aren't we," he said.

"Always," MacLeod answered. "I just don't advertise it as aggressively as others might." There was no mistaking the target of that barb; Methos rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, and said nothing.

                                   

  
   


* * *

  
   


Standing over the stove in the kitchen, doing his best to mangle a pan of eggs, MacLeod berated himself for taking so long to see Methos for who he truly was. There was a great deal he didn't know about his friend; five thousand years was long enough to forget more history than MacLeod had ever learned. If the events of the Bronze Age seemed like legends to Mac, how would they look to the man who'd lived through them? The sheer immensity of time Methos had survived was impossible to grasp, even for an immortal; how many changes could those years have wrought? How much of them could Methos actually remember?

The Scot frowned, and turned off the heat under the pan. The eggs had burned; they were darker even than the bacon, which itself was a few shades closer to black than it should have been. With a muffled curse, he tossed the spatula he'd been using onto the counter, mindless of the mess, and turned toward the other end of the room where Methos lay stretched out on his bed.

"Methos, you have to be here for this to work," he said, exasperated by the other man's apparent ease.

Almost lazily, Methos opened his eyes and focused on MacLeod. "Do I look like a man with places to go?"

Mac shook his head angrily. He didn't know how to break through the barriers Methos was throwing up between them, and he didn't know how to help his friend from the other side of them. He sat beside Methos on the bed, abandoning the ill-fated breakfast preparations. He suspected neither of them were nursing much of an appetite.

"You told me that you thought I could take your guilt away. I can't do that, Methos. What I can do is help you take it away. I'm willing to do that, but I can't if you're going to wrap yourself up in Adam Pierson and pretend nothing has happened here!"

Methos sat up, easing into a lotus position. "I don't get it," he said flatly. "MacLeod, I am everything you hate, everything you've always despised. You've fought and killed men for much, much less than what I've done, but here you are trying to feed me breakfast and soothe my wounded soul!"

"You were a killer for a thousand years. You renounced it. You've been torturing yourself ever since. What has it been? Two thousand years? Three?"

Methos laughed. "Renounced it, have I?"

MacLeod's eyebrows drew together. "Haven't you?"

"Why do you think I hide rather than fight, MacLeod? You think I'm afraid I might lose my head? In a thousand years, I haven't met the swordsman I couldn't best if my life depended on it.

"I'm not afraid of the dying. It's the killing that terrifies me. Every time I fight, it all comes back to me, and it feels good. It feels strong, beautiful, clean....my god, it's an incredible rush. I like it, MacLeod. I stopped it because I like it."

"But you did stop it!"

"Yes. But there's no twelve-step program for bad guys, y'know. 'Hi, I'm Methos, and I'm a homicidal maniac.' You might say I'm on the world's longest 'dry drunk'."

"So, you like to fight. That's not unheard of among our kind, you know."

"MacLeod, I like to win. And you know what winning entails...among our kind."

"What, living?"

"Killing. In the same way I did all those years ago. I liked it then; I like it now."

MacLeod thought for a moment, his eyes turned inward in contemplation. "I guess....I guess I don't understand that, Methos."

"No, I guess you don't." Methos' lips tightened as he frowned, trying to find a way to explain. "Highlander. You were born into a world that taught you about honor and dishonor, loyalty and betrayal, right and wrong. Those things are intuitive for you, they're part of your nature. I was born into a culture that taught me about mine and yours, kill or be killed, us and them. As much as your honor is a part of you, my code is a part of me."

MacLeod shook his head, smiling a little. "Methos, we're not that different. My "us" is a little more inclusive than yours, that's all."

Methos didn't return the smile. "Mac...the only person on my 'Us' list is me."

At that, MacLeod laughed outright. Having so often been on the receiving end of Methos' version of honor, it was impossible not to. It had taken him weeks--longer, even, than that--to reconcile his hatred of the things his friend had done with his deep affection for the man himself. Having done so, finally, he found himself remarkably clear.

Methos glared, irritated. "What's so funny?" he demanded.

"You," MacLeod answered, still grinning. "You and your 'every man for himself' speeches, trying to show everyone what a hardened, selfish man you are. There are some who may buy into that, Methos, but I'm not one of them."

"Then you're a fool," Methos snapped.

"No doubt, or I'd not be sitting here bashing my head against five thousand years worth of stubborn." MacLeod hid his smile, and spoke from his heart. "Who has your 'us' included since I met you? Me, for one. Then Joe. Alexa. Amanda. Even Richie once or twice. Your 'them' has included those people, and only those people, who have threatened one of us."

"That's not the point, Mac."

"It's the only point."

"Okay, so maybe some of your boyscout tendencies have rubbed off a little. Don't forget, though, while you're writing my resume', that I would have cheerfully killed anyone who stood in my way, innocent or no, when I was trying to help you. Any of you. I could have done it while whistling a happy tune," he added, his voice snide.

"Like Jacob Galati," MacLeod said softly.

"Just like that," Methos confirmed with a sharp nod. "Him or you. No contest."

"And if he'd been mortal?"

"Would've cut about thirty seconds out of the decision-making process. Mortal or no, Watcher or no, I didn't give a damn about him. I wasn't happy with the idea of giving up one of our own, but I haven't been staying up nights over it, either. I'm sorry, MacLeod. That's just the way it was. It's the way it's always going to be, every time I have to make that kind of choice."

"Fine," MacLeod said. He tried to put the force of his acceptance into that one word, to fill his eyes with it.

"Fine?"

"Fine!"

"You are infuriating, do you know that?"

MacLeod ghosted a smile to his friend. "It's been mentioned to me on occasion," he said. "Methos, if you can deal with my 'boyscout' code, I can deal with your...whatever the hell code it is. What do you call it, anyway?"

"In sophisticated circles," Methos said loftily, "it's generally referred to as pragmatism."

"Whatever. I can deal with it. Now, answer me this. So far I've born up under your constant pressure to compromise my ethics. Can you bear up under the same from me? I'm not going to let you run around killing people, mortals or otherwise, just to protect me."

"And I'm not going to let you stop me."

"Then I see a great number of arguments in our future."

Methos shook his head, chuckling softly. "My five millennia of stubborn have nothing on you, Mac."

"Bright boy."

"You won't sacrifice a friend for anything, will you." It was a statement, not a question.

"Not if I can help it. Not without doing everything I can to avoid it." MacLeod looked at Methos calmly, steadily, drawing on the past. "You're too important to lose."

"Am I?"

MacLeod nodded, unhesitating, and stretched out his hand, gripping Methos' arm just below the elbow. Methos' eyes widened in surprise, but answered the offer with his own grip, their forearms meeting in a strong hold. The clasp echoed the bond of friendship slowly regaining strength between them.

"I said I couldn't do without you," Mac said seriously. "I meant that. Methos..."

"Yeah, Mac?"

"You know you are absolutely forbidden to ever do anything as stupid as hunting down Falcon again, don't you?"

Methos laughed. "Not that I have any such desire, Highlander....but just who do you think could stop me if I did?"

MacLeod smiled, refusing to be drawn out. "You would. For me."

Methos returned the look, eyes bright with mingled relief and elation.

"Yes," he said softly, his smile fading into solemn promise. "I suppose I would."


	2. Intervention

Methos was tired; deep in his bones, in his muscles, in his heart. It took effort to draw in a breath, effort to expel it. Five thousand years bore down on him, closing his eyes, tightening his lips.

But those words... those words lightened the burden. _You're too important to lose,_ Mac had said, with that quiet Scottish intensity, changing the world with a glance.

He spared a moment just to breathe, feeling something grey and viselike in his chest loosening by gradual stages. His position, ankles crossed, knees bent and hands resting on them, was close to his favorite meditation pose. It was good to settle back into himself, feeling clear and easy with his heart in the dark silence behind his eyes. The gentle ebb of lingering _Presence_ generated by MacLeod's nearness washed over him like a soothing balm, and he felt his lips turning upward in a smile quite different from any he'd worn in a long time.

"Methos?"

Mac's voice was concerned; he'd been silent too long. Opening his eyes, he let the smile widen. "Still here."

Mac tilted his head to one side, brown eyes searching. "No anger, recriminations, smart remarks?" he said warily.

"I'm fresh out of original angst, and I'm not keen to repeat myself," Methos said -- then laughed, shaking his head. "Sorry, Mac. I didn't mean to ruin the moment--"

"--but it feels good be back to normal?" Now Mac was smiling too, his entire face brightened by it. "I know."

"So young to be so wise."

"It's part of my charm," Mac said.

Methos smiled. Trading roles, trading places -- it was a good game, and he'd missed it more than he'd realized. MacLeod was quick of mind and took a real pleasure in showing it off. _Almost as much pleasure as I take in seeing it._

"Are we, though? Back to normal again?" Mac tilted his head to one side -- a careful look. Cautious.

_Smart_.

"As normal as you and I are ever going to be, I suspect." Methos rose and stretched to his full height, arms extended out to either side. Muscles complained in so many places it was a wonder he could move at all. If anything, he was more tense now that things had been settled than he had been before.

"That looks like it hurts," Mac observed from the bed.

"Like you wouldn't believe. If I'm allowed to leave now--?"

MacLeod nodded, smiling a little.

"In that case, I'm going to go home and get a shower and some sleep."

"You can shower here, if you want. I have to deal with what was almost breakfast anyway."

Methos glanced over at MacLeod, his lips forming a slight curve. "Thanks," he said. "But I've got to get away from here for a bit."

Almost imperceptibly, MacLeod's features tightened.

"Not for good," Methos said. "Not even for long. I just need some time to assimilate everything we've said." He shook his head. "You're right, I am too conservative. I don't shift gears as quickly as I used to."

"That I can understand. As long as you're not planning to disappear."

Methos put a hand on MacLeod's shoulder. "I'm not going anywhere," he said, his expression a promise. "As a matter of fact--" He found his coat, and fished into one of its pockets for a pad and pencil. "My new place," he said, scribbling. "Give me a call later? We'll go to Joe's or something."

MacLeod groaned. "Amanda."

For a moment Methos didn't make the connection. Then: "Ahh. She got to him too, did she? And he will have told her....?"

"That you're here, certainly, and heaven knows what else." MacLeod laughed. "I'm surprised she hasn't called."

"Probably afraid to," Methos said with a grin. "I'm--"

The phone rang, right on cue; the two men's eyes met, sharing laughter. "Go," MacLeod said. "If I survive, I'll give you a call."

"If you survive," Methos said, "you're a better man than I think you are."

Mac's laughter followed him as he left.

  
   


* * *

  
   


He grabbed the phone in mid-ring. "MacLeod," he said, still smiling.

A soft female voice spoke briefly, and Duncan listened. In the space of a moment, his heart went cold and his smile faded, giving way to something close to shock. Something related to fear.

Moments later, he replaced the receiver in its cradle and took his trench coat from its hook on the wall.

It had not been Amanda.

  
   


* * *

  
   


As good as it felt to be at Mac's place as a guest instead of an intruder, at the moment it felt even better to be away. Methos hadn't been lying when he said he needed time to assimilate the changes the night had brought. From despair to hope to the renewal of a friendship he'd thought was dead in the space of twenty-four hours was too much, even for a man who'd lived through five millennia of changes. He needed time to touch base with himself, to examine his thoughts about the past day's events.

The day was still in its early greyness, the air cold with the hint of yet another storm. The streets of Seacouver were dark and wet, reflecting the orange sodium glow of street lamps that hadn't yet noticed the coming of day. Methos felt a smile on his lips, and amusement at its presence turned it into something both pleased and mocking. He wasn't a man well-acquainted with happiness, and the quiet joy that underlined his every thought this morning both exhilarated and embarrassed him.

_Not exactly dignified,_ he reflected, climbing the steps that led up to his apartment, _but it certainly beats the alternative._

A few hours of light sleep, caught as he sprawled fully dressed on the low twin bed that came with the rent, took the dark circles out from under his eyes and restored his clarity of mind. A few moments of indecision on waking decided him against showering right away; the choice between the bathroom a grad student could afford and the luxury of MacLeod's facilities was an easy one to make. He stuffed a change of clothes into his battered duffel, ran a comb through his hair, and headed back down to the streets.

Once again, though, he found himself walking aimlessly, enjoying the damp air against his face and the freshness of the wind. It surprised Methos that he had no desire to retreat into his research. He liked his flat -- _apartment, over here they're apartments_ \-- and he'd planned to spend at least part of the day at his desk, working on his journals. Lately he'd been thinking a great deal of the time he'd spent in Ireland as Jamie Byrne, near the beginning of the American Civil War. Though technically no longer a Watcher, he'd been at it too long to give it up completely; he still kept the record, added to his Chronicle. _Someday, I'll give it to Joe. I'll have to make sure they can authenticate it. He'll be the most famous Watcher in the world._ The thought made him smile. Methos was extremely fond of Joseph Dawson.

After all, it was Joe who had sent him Duncan MacLeod.

He wondered if Mac knew that waiting for him that first day, knowing that his cover was in danger, had been the most excitement he'd had in ten years? Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod was considered among the Watchers to be either the devil incarnate or the best hope for humanity, should he take the Prize. Methos had made a study of him, the dark, brooding Scot who'd caused such trouble in the organization. He'd cultivated Joe's friendship mainly out of curiosity.

And then Kalas had come, seeking out anything that would help him kill Duncan MacLeod. One of those things had been the Quickening of the world's oldest Immortal, AKA Adam Pierson, mild-mannered Watcher.

MacLeod had come to Paris to stop Kalas, and in a few short weeks made a complete wreck of Methos' cover and his life. Suddenly there were three people who knew him for who he was, and who persisted in using his real name no matter how he cautioned against it. And worse -- suddenly, there were three people who mattered to him. MacLeod, Dawson, Amanda.

Just as suddenly, he'd found himself having to work at being Adam Pierson. As if conjured by his name, the parts of himself he'd tucked away for survival's sake surged to the forefront, remaking him. He reveled in the Highlander's company not just for its own sake, but because it allowed him to drop his grad-student act and be Methos.

The familiarity of the buildings around him intruded on his thoughts, and Methos stopped, looking around to place himself.

A laugh escaped him as he read the sign across the street.

DeSalvo's.

Shaking his head, giving in, Methos jogged across the street and took the stairs that led back to the loft.

  
   


* * *

  
   


His knock went unanswered, so he let himself in. It was a constant source of amusement that, in five thousand years of progress, no one had yet managed to invent a decent door lock. He found the loft empty, but otherwise exactly as he'd left it -- a state which, sadly, included the smell of burnt eggs and bacon drifting on the air.

"Amanda must have been impatient for details," he muttered out loud, divesting himself of his trench coat and starting on the dishes. The sheer domesticity of it was appalling, but so then was the smell.

A flash of _Presence_ warned him of company moments before the elevator's motor groaned into life; Methos checked to make sure his sword was in grabbing range, but didn't take it up. It wasn't beyond the bounds of imagination that someone with a grudge could step out of the elevator, but it did fall into the category of 'highly unlikely'. After the events of the past few days, he didn't want to point a blade at anybody, let alone a friend.

It proved unnecessary. The new arrival was not going to win any popularity contests, but neither did Methos any pressing need to kill him.

"Hi, Richie," he said, drying his hands with a soft dish towel. "Mac's not here."

"I can see that," Ryan said. "You didn't...ah...?" Richie trailed off, and Methos grinned.

"Kill him? No. Other way around, actually. My chest still hurts." When Richie scowled, Methos couldn't help but laugh. Almost as much fun as teasing Mac.

"You're certainly in a good mood," Richie said, pulling a bottle of water from the refrigerator. "Does that mean Mac's in a good mood, too?"

Methos raised his eyebrows, considering. "He seemed to be when I left earlier."

"Can't blame him for that."

Methos laughed -- surprised, delighted by the joke. As far as he could recall, in the year he'd known Ryan, the only civil words the young man had spoken to him had been 'nice to meet you'. He wondered to what he owed the honor of Ryan's good humor, but wasn't inclined to push it.

"So, d'you want me to tell him you dropped by," Methos said, "or...?"

"I'll stick around, I think."

Methos smiled at that. "I'm washing the silver, Ryan, not stealing it," he said dryly.

This time it was Richie who laughed. A cautious truce.

"If you're going to be around for a bit...?" Methos said casually when the last of the dishes had been shelved.

Richie's eyes shifted from the magazine he'd been leafing through. "Yeah?"

_Can't hurt. Might even help._ "I need to get cleaned up. A friend with a sword in the living room means I don't have to bring mine into the shower."

"How do you know ~I~ won't try for you?"

Methos smiled. "There's too much of MacLeod in you for that."

"You think so?"

"You don't?"

Richie went pink around the ears. "Mac has a lot of rules," he said. "Not all of them make a lot of sense to me."

"That's not an exclusive club."

"I just feel like they should." Richie shrugged. "I get it, up here --" he waved at his head. "--but in my gut?"  
"You weren't born to them," Methos said. "And besides, who's to say Mac's rules are the right ones?"

"He's the most honorable man I know," Richie said quickly, defensive.

Methos waved the comment aside. "Yeah. But surely you've noticed that honor isn't always a convenient thing to have, especially MacLeod's particular brand. Sometimes it puts you in danger you might do better to avoid."

"So you think we shouldn't have any rules? Just play the Game and do whatever it takes to win?" Richie shook his head. "Doesn't seem right."

"That's not precisely what I said. MacLeod and I differ on this. I believe honor can be satisfied without taking unnecessary risks. Mac, on the other hand, believes that when the two conflict, honor is always the proper choice." Methos sighed. All he'd wanted was to take a shower, and maybe let the kid feel a bit protective, like an equal. It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

"And when the two conflict, what do you choose?"

"It's not that simple. The term is _situational ethics_. Different situations require different reactions. You choose your battles, Ryan. You don't let them choose you."

"You'd run from a fight, then, if you didn't think it was an important fight?"

"Of course I would. And so will you, if you're smart. Because though today's fight may not be important, tomorrow's might. And if you fight and lose the one that's not vital, who will be there to fight the one that is?"

Richie was quiet for a moment, digesting that. When he spoke, his tone was thoughtful. "Does Mac know about that theory?"

Methos laughed. "Oh, he knows about it. He just doesn't believe in it. Your teacher believes that all the fights are important fights. Or rather, he always believes that today's fight is the most important fight."

"And you don't."

"No. I don't."

"So, you're saying that some of Mac's rules may be kind of subjective. Highlander rules, not Immortal rules?"

"Ryan, let me list them for you. One: No taking heads on holy ground. Two: There can be only one. Three: If you lose your head, it's over. The other things Mac has taught you are his rules, his beliefs. That's what a mentor does. You choose to stay with MacLeod because on some level, his beliefs appeal to you. He chose you as a student because he believes you can live up to his standards. For what it's worth, I believe you can, too. I just feel better knowing that you know the difference between rules and convictions."

"What about how you can't interfere with a challenge?"

Methos shook his head. "Tradition. Sacred tradition, but that doesn't make it a rule. I interfered with a challenge a month or so back. Threw firebombs at them until they broke it off, and nothing dire has come of it."

"What about one on one combat only?"

"Sacred tradition."

"But if you don't follow the traditions..."

"...then your fellow Immortals may decide you're too much of a loose cannon, and hunt you down. It's a good idea to follow the traditions as well as the rules, Ryan, but remember: No tradition is worth losing your head over."

Richie was shaking his head. "I have to think about all this."

"Yeah, you do. There are a lot of things to consider when you go into a fight. It's not just about you and the person you're facing. It's about the people you care about, the people he cares about. It's about the people who care about you." Methos paused, wondering how far to take it. "What d'you suppose your death might do to Mac?"

"I guess it would mess him up pretty bad."

"More than 'pretty bad', I think. So there you have a choice: Is what you're fighting for worth the possibility of causing Mac that kind of pain if you should lose?"

"I hadn't thought of it that way."

"Most people don't. Most people don't consider their own personal value when they fight. You have to realize, Ryan, that there is a great deal of good you can do in the world. You don't sacrifice that potential for just any fight. Sometimes you serve the world better by living for what you believe in rather than dying for it."

Richie looked at him, his expression serious. "There's more to you than I thought."

Methos rolled his eyes. "Gee, thanks, kid."

"I definitely have to think about this. Does Mac know you're trying to corrupt me?" He was smiling, but the question was genuine.

"I'm not trying to corrupt you, Ryan," Methos said. "Nor is this the wisdom of the ages you're getting here. It's just good sense."

"That doesn't answer my question," Richie said, grinning.

Methos smiled slyly. "No. He doesn't. Why don't we just keep it between us...?"

"Sure. Unless the situation changes..."

Methos laughed, and headed toward the shower. "You're learning, Ryan. You just may keep your head for a while after all."

  
   


* * *

  
   


"I have to know, Joseph."

Joe wondered how long Mac had fought the urge to call him, out of respect for the tentative steps back to friendship they'd just taken. When he'd heard Mac's voice on the line earlier, he'd smiled in a welcome his friend couldn't see. He'd looked forward to hearing a full report on the events after his departure the night before.

They met at a coffeehouse at ten, Joe grumbling half-heartedly at the general frilliness of the place and the worthlessness of designer coffee. The table they'd found was set off from the others by a few large plastic plants. Joe was pleased to find the cafe nearly empty, even though the bitterness of the coffee was an decent explanation for the lack of business.

He shook his head. Crazy, to think Mac had called just to talk to a friend. This was a business meeting, like dozens before. On further thought, Joe wondered why he'd expected it to be different. Gratitude hadn't improved MacLeod in the past; there was no reason to expect it do so now.

Joe pushed those thoughts out of his mind. The question was important and deserved an answer. Leaning close over the table, he spoke in a low voice in spite of their relative isolation. "Mac, if I knew, I'd tell you. You know I would. But Cassandra's Watcher hasn't reported in. Without that report, we don't know where she could be."

"What about plane tickets, hotel reservations? Come on, Joe, you guys have to have some way of keeping track of your people!" Frustration made Mac's voice harsh, and he closed his eyes, obviously struggling for control. "I'm sorry. I'm just worried. I didn't get any sleep last night."

"I know you're worried. What exactly did the caller say?"

"It didn't make a lot of sense," Mac said. "It was a woman, an older woman, and all she said was, 'Be careful, Cassandra Hunts.' Then the line went dead."

"Went dead? She didn't just hang up?"

"No. There was a blast of static, then a dial tone."

"Could have been a cell phone," Joe speculated. "A car phone, maybe, cut off by a tunnel?"

Mac shook his head impatiently. "It wasn't like that, Joe. The lady sounded scared."

"You think something happened to her."

"I think maybe Cassandra happened to her, Joe. And I think..."

Joe's eyes narrowed at the look of thinly veiled panic in the Immortal's eyes. "What is it, MacLeod?"

"Joe, I think she may have been one of yours. A Watcher."

Joe was shaking his head. "No. No, Mac." There was a roughness in his voice that had nothing to do with the early hour.

"Yes, Joe. Look, I know you've had people trailing me around Seacouver for a while. I know what they look like. One of them was an older woman, about forty. She comes on with the morning shift, doesn't she? She sits in a green Geo Prizm just down the street from the Dojo and waits for me to come out. She wasn't there this morning."

Joe's heart froze in his chest. "Marta. You're sure she wasn't there? Maybe in a different car?"

"I took the same route to the bagel shop that I do every morning. She follows me in, buys a chocolate chip bagel with cream cheese, a coffee, and a paper. Every morning for the past month, Joe, and today she didn't come."

"Maybe she knew you'd picked her out. Knew her cover was blown."

"She's known that for the past two weeks. The first time I picked up on it, I looked her dead in the eye, and she blushed. She smiled at me, Joe, it was actually kind of sweet. I nodded to her, and went on my way. If that didn't make her back off, I don't know what would have."

"This isn't happening."

"I take it she was a friend?" Mac asked kindly.

Joe's eyes darkened. "_Is_ a friend," he said sharply. He let out a long breath, and let his gaze fall away from the Immortal's. "Sorry. Forget it."

Mac reached across the table and laid a hand on Joe's arm. "Find her for me, Joe. Find Cassandra, and if she's hurt Marta--"

"Don't pretend this is about Marta." Joe yanked his arm away. "You and I both know why you need to find Cassandra, and it has nothing to do with my world."

"Your world, Joe? Last time I checked it was our world. Or maybe I just imagined you saving the life of an Immortal last night?"

"Forgive me, MacLeod, if I'm a little bitter at the thought of losing yet another Watcher to yet another Immortal."

Mac's expression hardened. "I think maybe this is a good time to change the subject."

"Yeah, how's the weather in your part of town?"

"Damn it, Dawson!" The exclamation exploded into the stillness of the room, drawing curious glances from the employees behind the counter. Mac lowered his voice to a harsh whisper. "Whatever problems there are between the Watchers and the Immortals, it doesn't have to be like this for us. You're Joe Dawson. I'm Duncan MacLeod. Our friendship is about who we are, not what we are."

Joe shook his head. "You don't get it, do you, Mac? Can you honestly say we'd be sitting here right now if I were just the owner of your favorite bar?"

"If this is the way you feel, Joe, why did you come to my place last night? Why did you help me?"

Suddenly weary, suddenly impatient, Joe couldn't keep the anger out of his voice. "I didn't."

Confusion narrowed Mac's eyes. "You were there for me last night, when I needed you..."

"I wasn't there for you." Joe glared at MacLeod, honing his words to cut deep. If they found their mark, it was only justice. "I was there for Adam."

  
   


* * *

  
   


It felt good to be standing in the heat and steam, water pounding over him relentlessly, cascading down his body. Of all the new and sybaritic pleasures of the modern world, Methos often thought that this was the most perfect. Warmth suffused his skin and the muscles beneath, relieving the tension, easing and refreshing him. The moisture in the air was carried into his lungs, displacing oxygen, making him light-headed. _Cheapest high in the world. And when it's over, you smell good._ He braced his hands on either side of the shower, feeling the cool stone pressing into his palms, and smiled up into the spray from overhead. The water ran over his face, pooling in his eyes, trickling into his mouth, sweet.

Sweet, and cooling.

He pushed away, running hands over his wet hair to rinse away the last of the shampoo and then fumbling in the rapidly chilling fall of water for the shower release. One wrong, blind guess and ice was falling over him; a muffled curse, another swipe, and it was gone, pouring from the bath spout rather than the showerhead.

He slid the door open and reached for a towel; the flash of _Presence_ hit him as he rubbed his hair dry. Methos froze, poised for movement, and listened. After a moment, the rise and fall of voices, calm and low, reassured him.

Moments later, a knock sounded loud and sharp against the door. He shook his head, sighing. _Manners are not what they used to be._ "I'll be out in a minute," he called, tugging on the clothes he'd scavenged from his apartment.

The knock sounded again, and he yanked the door open. "What?" he demanded.

"Pizza's here," MacLeod said calmly. Then, with a smile sweetly offensive: "Your hair's sticking up."

"Thank you," Methos snapped, turning to peer into the mirror and slicking a hand over his scalp. "If I hadn't been interrupted, I would've stayed in here until I was more presentable. And less naked," he added, grabbing the dark green pullover he'd hung on the back of the door and yanking it over his head. He felt absurdly self-conscious under Mac's gaze, a realization that only fueled his irritation.

MacLeod was trying unsuccessfully to hide a smile, no doubt at the idea of a five thousand year old man who was still capable of modesty. "Did you use all the hot water?"

"Yes," Methos said, his tone as smug as his grin and faintly sadistic. "I believe I did."

MacLeod was unruffled. "It'll heat again. Are you hungry?"

"Ravenous."

"Good. We'll eat as soon as you go out and get the beer."

"Me?" Methos pretended shock. "I just had a shower! I'm not going out again. And besides, I'm broke. That last flight from Paris maxed out Adam Pierson's only credit card."

"Fine," Mac said. "We can drink milk, I suppose. Or I could make some tea."

"Why don't you go out and get the beer?"

"Me?" Mac smiled widely. "I haven't had a shower. I can't go out like this."

Ryan's voice drifted over from the kitchen. "Are you guys going to hang out in the bathroom all night, or are we actually going to eat at some point? Like, preferably before I starve to death."

"Yeah, I can see you're in real danger, Ryan," Methos muttered. "What'd you feed him when he was growing up, anyway? Toxic waste?"

"Everything. We didn't have a lot of choice. Tessa and I just stocked the refrigerator daily and locked our door at night."

"I heard that, Mac," Ryan said, laughing.

Methos watched the two of them exchange a fond look filled with time and memory. He'd never known Tessa, but he wished he had; she'd touched MacLeod's life in a way he'd have liked to have understood better. He knew the story, of course: Richie's abortive burglary attempt, Connor MacLeod's intervention, Richie's subsequent "adoption" by Mac and his lover. Together, the three of them had made something with which Methos had very little experience. They'd made a family.

For a timeless moment, he let his mind slide back, away from the present. There had been many loves in his past, faces that appeared in his dreams with no names and names that flitted through his mind with no images attached. Alexa burned brightest, because she was the last. Mortals, all of them, ignorant of his true nature, accepting him for the lies he told, offering him whatever comfort he could find in their arms and hearts.

Tessa had known MacLeod for who and what he was, and Methos thought perhaps it was a blessing that she had been taken from him so quickly. Better that, surely, than the pain of watching her die slowly of age or infirmity, weakening while Mac remained young and strong. A glimpse of that pain had been granted Methos as he kept vigil at Alexa's bedside, watching her disappear in slow stages while he cursed himself for the eternal health he couldn't share with her.

Never again. It hurt too much, cut too deeply. He wondered if he'd ever be able to think of her without pain, as Ryan and MacLeod were thinking of Tessa now.

_It passes,_ he reminded himself. _Nothing lasts forever, not even pain._

A gentle hand on his shoulder brought him back to the present.

"You looked your age for a few seconds there," Mac said, his voice low.

"I felt it for a few seconds there." Methos took a deep breath and released it slowly. "A lot of memories. It's easy to get lost."

"I can't begin to imagine it. Five thousand years. It's hard enough for me to stay in the present, and I only have four hundred to worry about."

"I try not to think about anything that happened before the fifteenth century," Methos said, trying for a serious tone. "Nobody knew how to make decent beer until then. A shame, really; the Middle Ages would have been easier to face if I hadn't spent so much of them sober."

MacLeod's eyebrows climbed, and he lauhged softly. "Change of subject noted and logged. No more probing about your past."

"Anything before the Beatles is old news, anyway, Mac." Methos grinned, looking over at Ryan. "Did I ever tell you I knew John Lennon...?"

  
   


* * *

  
   


In the end, Ryan had gone after the beer, bringing back enough to last them well into the evening. The pizza had long since vanished, along with two of the six-packs, and the three Immortals had settled into a companionable debate. Methos kept things light, for Mac's sake. There was something troubling him; whatever it was would come out in good time, when MacLeod was ready to talk about it. For now, it seemed wiser to relax into the warmth of good company and hope, when the time came, it would be something he could help with.

"You did not give John Lennon the lyrics to 'Imagine'," Ryan said definitively.

"I'm telling you, kid, that was me. Listen, I'll play it again--"

"NO!" Mac and Ryan's voices rang out together, and Mac deftly disarmed Methos, putting the guitar behind him and out of reach. Methos surrendered the instrument readily enough in exchange for another beer. "Five times is plenty, thank you," Mac said, laughing.

"The fact that you can play it doesn't mean that you wrote it," Ryan added.

"Just listen to the words, 'Imagine all the people living life in peace...' I was in my pacifistic stage."

"Right. I bet you were," Mac said.

"You're just a couple of cynics, that's what you two are. No appreciation for great art."

"I hate to break this to you, after five thousand years and all," Ryan said, "but your singing voice and the term 'great art' do not belong in the same conversation. No one has mentioned that to you before?"

"And lived? No." Methos maintained an expression of deadly earnest until Ryan began to look concerned, and then let loose the grin he'd been fighting to keep hidden.

"On that note," Ryan said, "I'm out of here. I'm meeting someone."

"Someone of the feminine persuasion?" Mac asked, smiling.

"Very much so. Her name's Theresa. I told her I'd meet her for the last set at Joe's. Ya gotta love the blues," he added, his expression bewildered. "That kind of music just does something to women."

"Spare us the details, if you will, Ryan. I'm not sure my heart could take the strain."

With a casual wave, Richie grabbed his motorcycle helmet and gave the elevator a miss, using the door to the steps outside for speed.

Alone in the loft, the two men fell into a companionable silence. Methos sat on the floor, leaning back against the couch with his knees drawn up to his chest, while Mac took a similar pose on the opposite side of the coffee table. It was early yet, only a little after nine, but neither of them had slept more than a few hours since the morning before. Methos felt a warm haziness stealing over him, a combination of effects from alcohol and sleeplessness. He tilted his head back, felt the muscles in his throat stretching gently, and smiled. It was a measure of trust even he hadn't known he'd extended, this willingness to relax into such a vulnerable pose.

"Richie mentioned the two of you had a little chat earlier," Mac said, breaking the silence.

Methos laughed softly. "Did he cut class on the day you taught discretion, Mac?"

"The better part of valor?"

"The better part of survival."

Mac nodded; it seemed to be the answer he'd expected. "I think he just needed to touch base with me on the high points of your philosophy. You made quite an impression on him."

"Hopefully a better one than the first time we met."

"I think he was flattered that you wanted to talk to him at all, O Wise One."

Methos winced. "Not funny."

"Not meant to be," Mac said, but he was smiling. After a moment, Methos let his own features relax.

"He's a good kid. He's got potential. And he believes that every word that passes your lips is inspired from on high. You do know that, don't you? Ryan worships the ground you walk on."

"Maybe that's not such a bad thing, now that I have competition. You know, Methos...it's not so much that I disagree with your ideas..."

"...it's just that you think I'm wrong and you're right." Methos grinned, daring him to deny it.

"Something like that."

Silence again, for a few moments, as Methos waited for Mac to continue. When no further comments were forthcoming, Methos smiled. "We're not really talking about Ryan here, are we? Something's been eating at you all night. Are we going to talk about it?"

MacLeod met his eyes, shaking his head. "I don't even know where to start. It's been a rough day."

"Start at the beginning. Where did you go this morning, after I left?"

"To sleep--for a few hours, anyway. Thanks for taking care of the dishes."

"Is this how we're going to play it? I can do secretive and evasive, Mac, but I didn't think that was how you wanted it."

'No," Mac said, sarcasm dripping from his voce, "that's not how we're going to play it." He sighed heavily; Methos could see the point of decision approach, come to crisis, then pass. "Cassandra may be in town."

The words fell into him like stones into a still pool, the ripples spreading out, changing everything. Suddenly, the room seemed cold.

_Cassandra._

  
   


* * *

  
   


Heart frozen in his chest, Methos remembered.

_She stood over him, the axe poised for a killing blow, and he wanted it. Silas' body lay mere feet from him, head cleanly severed, life gone. His brother. A thousand years of brotherhood._

And then Silas was in his head, his heart, crying out against his betrayal, his hurt and confusion howling down the corridors of Methos' mind, ravaging him. The pain of it, the sheer depth of it, threatened to overwhelm him.

And then there were the others. Countless, countless others. Three millennia of challenges offered, accepted, won. He'd loved Silas, had seen his simple nature as innocence; a blooded innocence, to be sure, guided by Kronos and Caspian and yes, even himself to kill again and again, but always just for his brothers, for the belonging, for the Horsemen. The best of them, he'd often thought, a man whose life could so easily have been redirected toward good...

Such a fool.

The wrongness, the twisted sickness of Silas, poured over him, through him. Challenges offered for sport, for the pleasure of the kill, pain dealt for the love of suffering... Tauntings, countless cruelties, hatreds burned deep... he shuddered under the onslaught, he shattered as the magnitude of his misjudgment screamed into his soul.

In the darkness of ancient nights, he'd had often held onto the illusion of Silas' innocence like a lifeline, a surety of light in the vast darkness of the Horsemen's world. An amulet of decency against the evil of Kronos and Caspian and yes, again, even his own evil. Someone who killed, but who might not have, had the circumstances been different.

And it was a lie, all of it. A lie he'd told himself. And now Cassandra stood over him with his brother's blade, an axe honed sharp, and he couldn't move to stop her. Didn't want to stop her, didn't care if she struck him down.

Then the voice came out of the howling dark, and pleaded for his life. Voices flowed over him, deciding his fate as he sobbed out his bitterness, his remorse. Footsteps, ringing against metal stairs, retreated behind and above; others approached.

Hands gripped his shoulders, strong and firm, turning him. Lifting him. He was insensate, stumbling wherever he was led.

Incoherent with grief, numbed and remade by the pain of Silas' Quickening, he leaned heavily into the support of the man who had saved him from Cassandra, feeling neither gratitude nor relief.

For the first time in five thousand years, he was ready to die.

  
   


* * *

  
   


The Horsemen were gone. All of them dead, even he was dead, slain by the knowledge of his own evil, remade into a man he was still learning to be after two thousand years. Cassandra, though, remained. Creating herself in the image of what Methos had been. Becoming Death, as he had once been. The circle closing.

He'd known she would come for him. Dreading it had become a hobby, and now the waiting was over.

He wondered if he would let her kill him. It would, he supposed, be the just thing to do. The honorable thing. He'd killed her many times, temporarily, and he owed her for those deaths. Even MacLeod might see it that way.

Methos broke away from that hurtful thought. Mac would be torn again, conflicted again, and he would have to choose -- again.

Unless Methos could find Cassandra first, and choose for him.

  
   


* * *

  
   


Duncan remained silent, knowing that the memories had to be allowed to run their course. Occupational hazard, Methos would have said, these occasional unwilling forays into the depths of time.

Keeping Cassandra from killing Methos had been a near thing, and there'd been a few moments when he'd been sure Methos didn't thank him for it.

Methos. Cassandra. It was beyond unfair that this should be happening again, but perhaps poetic justice that he should find himself in the middle of it when it did. The confrontation had been coming since that day in the Dojo, when Cassandra had come down in the elevator and gone after Methos with three millennia of hatred in her eyes. He'd broken the rules, then, without even thinking about it. He'd interfered, instinct driving him to protect his friend, who hadn't even drawn a sword. _Do something, MacLeod!_ Methos had said, counting on Duncan's connection with Cassandra to somehow resolve the situation bloodlessly. And so he'd done something, grabbing Cassandra, telling Methos to go, praying they could sort it all out when the female Immortal returned to her senses. Those had been his last moments of certainty about Methos for a long time.

When Cassandra had fled the submarine base the day of the double Quickening, he'd half-carried Methos back to the Hotel de Seze and paid for another room, sitting beside him for hours until the worst of the storm passed. When Methos finally slipped into a restless sleep, Duncan had left without a word.

In the room he'd shared with Cassandra, Duncan had found her things gone and a note on his pillow. Three words, in her flowing, almost calligraphic script.

_You owe me._

And maybe he did. But he didn't owe her Methos, and she would not have him.

"It's going to be fine." Duncan nodded, trying to convince Methos, trying to convince himself.

"Of course it is," Methos said dryly.

"I can talk to her. If she's even here. That's not certain. I got a call, a warning, but no one's actually seen her."

"And the caller was who, a concerned citizen? A prank? Someone calling numbers at random, on the off chance the name 'Cassandra' would strike fear into the hearts of strangers?"

"I think it was a Watcher."

"Bloody friendly of him, don't you think?"

"Her, and yes, I think it was. Especially since I'm not all that certain she's still alive. If it's who Joe thinks it is--"

Methos started, frowning. "Joe? What's--you've already been to _Joe_? When were you planning to bring me into this, Mac? Saving it for Christmas?"

"You know now."

"Yeah," Methos said in obvious disgust. "Thanks."

When Duncan didn't respond, Methos rolled his eyes. "Okay, so what did Joe find out?"

"I don't know. He'll call, though. For your sake, if nothing else."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Duncan sighed, closing his eyes. "It means that Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod is no longer of any interest to Joe Dawson. Lucky for us, you still are."

"Said something unpleasant, did he?"

"You could say that."

Methos eyed Duncan carefully. "You just went to him for information, didn't you. No 'Hi, how are you, nice day'.... Mac, when are you going to learn?"

"I was worried. I reacted without thinking."

"You do that a lot with Joe."

"I don't need you to tell me that."

Methos shrugged, spreading his arms expansively. "You need somebody to, and I'm the only one here. So, he cut you loose, then? What did he say?"

"Just that last night wasn't for me. That he didn't come here to help me. It was all for his good friend Adam Pierson."

"Jealousy, Mac? Come on."

"I'm not jealous. It just hurt."

"It was probably supposed to."

"What do you mean?"

"You hurt him...he hurts you. It's a common reaction, Mac, I can't believe you've never seen it. Why wouldn't he want to hit back?"

"Joe Dawson is not the kind of man who hurts people for the sake of hurting them."

"Yeah, well, it doesn't appear that turning the other cheek cuts any ice with you, does it?"

Duncan looked at Methos. That look was there, that irritating calm, that refusal to give any quarter. "Sometimes you're not very good company, you know that?"

"It's been mentioned to me," Methos said dryly, "on occasion."

  
   


* * *

  
   


"You do love to brood, don't you?"

The last remains of the meal had been cleared away, the last of the beer stored in the fridge with the two slices of pizza Ryan had somehow missed before he left. The clean-up had proceeded quietly, each of the men locked in contemplative silence as they worked.

Now, MacLeod had retired to the couch, a beer in one hand, his eyes open but unseeing.

It was Methos' considered opinion that, even for a Scot, MacLeod had raised brooding to an art form.

He stacked the last of the dinner plates onto a high shelf and dried his hands with the same towel he'd used that afternoon. _Five thousand years old, and I'm reduced to doing dishes for an oversensitive brat._

Beyond a dark look, MacLeod ignored him. Methos shrugged inwardly, and reached for his coat. It was getting late, and it wasn't difficult to choose rest over needling Mac out of his mood.

When he lifted the elevator guard, MacLeod looked around, then stood up. "Where are you going?"

"Home. I have a few projects that could use some attention, and a little more sleep wouldn't do me any harm."

"Don't."

"Don't what? Don't sleep? I don't think I have that option, Mac, at least not over the long term." Methos' eyes narrowed. "What's with you?"

"You're tired, and you're not entirely sober. I just think it would be a good idea if you stayed here tonight. I'll make up the couch."

Understanding dawned. "You don't want me walking home alone," Methos said, grinning.

Mac avoided his eyes. "You're not in your best condition. If she's out there, you could end up in trouble."

"Trouble and I have an acquaintance of long standing, MacLeod," Methos said. He leaned against the wall, hands stuffed deep into his pockets. "And four beers, even good ones, don't make much of a dent in my sobriety."

"Look, I have to sleep, too. And I'm not going to be able to do that if you're out there on the streets with an old enemy hunting you. So as a personal favor to me...?"

Methos chuckled. "I'm five thousand years old. You really feel the need to play mother hen?"

"If you acted your age, maybe I wouldn't," MacLeod said defensively.

"If I acted my age, I'd bore you to tears, and myself as well." Methos laughed, but he shoved away from the wall and hung his coat back on the hook. "One condition."

"Yes?"

"I get the bed."

"Methos!"

"I get the bed, or no deal. I have a perfectly functional bed at my place, you know. I could just as easily use that one."

The phone put a stop to the argument with a shrill ring. Mac answered it; his expression darkening as he listened.

"I said I'd handle it," he said sharply to the caller. "No. Then tell Adam, he's part of 'your world', isn't he? No, he's not at home. He's here." Scowling, MacLeod extended the receiver to Methos. "It's for you," he snapped. "I'm going downstairs."

  
   


* * *

  
   


Methos took the phone, frowning in concern as MacLeod took the elevator down to the Dojo. "Pierson," he said.

"Adam, it's Joe."

"Well, that explains a lot."

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing, Joe. Just talking to myself. What's up?"

"MacLeod asked me for some information on Cassandra."

"And you have something?" he said, his voice deliberately casual. One of the things that had kept him alive so long was the ability to learn from the mistakes of others; he wasn't going to give Joe any excuse to pull back when the information was so vital.

"Something, yeah. I thought MacLeod might want to know that Marta, one of the Watchers I've had on him, is fine. He seemed concerned earlier."

"Mac? Concerned about a Watcher?" Methos smiled, but kept it out of his voice. "He seem that type to you?"

A long silence answered him. "He told you about our conversation," Joe said finally.

"We've talked about a lot of things in the past twenty-four hours."

"I suppose you being there means that part worked out okay? You two are speaking again?"

"Yes. Ryan, too, oddly enough; the three of us killed several pizzas and two six packs this evening." Part of Methos was screaming at him to find out where Cassandra was, but another part counseled patience. Whatever Joe had to say would come out more coherently and completely once he'd gotten the problem with MacLeod off his chest.

"Good. I know it was important to you."

Methos sighed loudly. "Yeah, that was a really nice thing you did for me last night. I know how hard it must have been for you, knowing you were helping Mac, too. Quite a sacrifice."

"Adam..."

"I just wanted to express my gratitude, Joe."

"Like hell."

Methos smiled. "It's really none of my business. You and Mac, I mean. Besides, I'm sure he'll be fine in the morning."

The silence stretched out, the line between the two men almost humming with it. "What do you mean, in the morning? What's wrong with him now?"

"He was just a little upset when he left."

Joe's voice took on a worried note. "Where did he go, Adam?"

"I didn't get a chance to ask; he left pretty quickly." _Not precisely a lie...._

"Adam, you have to find him. You -- both of you -- are in danger."

"That's old news, my friend."

"Listen. Mac was right, it was Marta who called him. Cassandra had her, Adam."

Methos was suddenly less amused. "If that's so, how is it that the woman isn't dead?"

"It wasn't for lack of trying. Marta has several broken ribs, and a fairly serious concussion. She's in the hospital. Apparently Cassandra took her from right outside the Dojo early this morning."

"For what purp--" Methos stopped, interrupted and answered his own question. "To find out what Mac's been up to."

"Yes. She told Cassandra everything, Adam. Everything she knew, and she knew a lot."

"For instance...?"

"That a young Immortal fitting your description, one Adam Pierson, was rescued by MacLeod and myself and brought back to Mac's loft last night, and hadn't left by the time Cassandra got there."

Methos muttered a curse. "Is this going to be a problem for you, Joe?"

"No, I don't think so. The people I had Watching you and Mac for me are _my_ people."

"What about Cassandra's Watcher?"

"We got lucky with him. He's fine, too, but he's blown. We no longer have a Watcher on her, Adam. It's not safe."

Another blasphemy, this time in a language lost to the world for three thousand years. "Tell me about Marta."

"She was roughed up pretty badly. Cassandra grabbed her just at dawn, took her to the place she's been staying. She beat Marta to find out about Mac, and then left her in a locked room, alone."

"How'd she get to a phone?"

Joe chuckled. "Cassandra doesn't keep up with modern technology. Marta had a flip phone in her pocket; when Cassandra had gone, she used it. Tried to reach me, but couldn't. So, she called MacLeod. Warned him."

"And then Cassandra came back."

"Yes. Smashed the phone, then smashed Marta as best she could. When she left the next time, Rick -- Cassandra's Watcher -- went in and pulled Marta out."

"That was a hell of a risk. We could've ended up with two dead Watchers."

"We take care of our own, Adam. You know that."

Methos sighed. "Yeah. I know that. Look, Joe, I want you to set up a meeting for me with Marta. Tomorrow, early. All right?"

"I'm with her now. Is there something specific you need to ask?"

"Yes, but I have to do it in person. I won't really know what questions to ask until I see her."

"You have a theory."

"I'll tell you about it in the morning, Joseph," Methos said firmly. "If I'm right, though, and I often am, you can relax a bit. Cassandra won't be coming back for Marta."

  
   


* * *

  
   


Methos watched, leaning against the wall of the Dojo, as MacLeod moved through the sequences of his workout. Beautiful. The swordsmanship was intricate, precise, flowing. Art. He smiled, remembering another workout, another time.

And he couldn't resist. He pushed away from the wall and moved closer, carefully. "MacLeod-san," he said, trying not to grin. "That katana is a lovely piece of art."

Mac pulled out of his stance, smiling at his audience of one, and waited.

"May I?" Methos continued. "I washed my hands this morning."

Without hesitation, Mac handed over the katana, hilt first. "Quite a blade," he said, amused.

Methos shook his head mockingly. "Still so quick to hand over your weapon, Highlander. I despair. "

The young Immortal gestured toward the center of the room. "Want to play?"

A smile quirked Methos' lips up at the corners. "I learned my lesson last time."

"You let me win last time," Mac observed.

"I let you win the fight," Methos conceded, grinning, "but the argument went to me."

Mac laughed, admitting it. "You taught me a lesson. Never give a five thousand year old man a sword unless you trust him."

"You did trust me then."

"And I trust you now -- but it's an informed trust."

Methos flipped the blade up into the air, and Mac caught it easily, returning it to the coat he'd brought down with him. "If you're done," Methos said, "Can we go back up?" The walls were a little too far away, the shadows too pronounced and numerous for his comfort.

MacLeod gave him a hard look. "Dawson said something you didn't like," he observed as they rode back up to the loft. "Want to share it?"

Quickly, Methos filled him in on the details of the conversation. MacLeod's face went pale behind its tan when he learned what had happened to his temporary Watcher.

"She's here, then." MacLeod said, stepping cautiously out of the elevator.

"Not at this moment, I should hope," Methos said, "but basically, yeah."

Mac turned to him, and Methos saw that the man was shaken. "I don't understand why she wouldn't just come to me."

"Mac... Why would she? You stopped her once. She's afraid you'll do it again."

"It doesn't make any sense, Methos. This isn't the way Cassandra works."

Methos watched as MacLeod busied himself, gathering blankets and a pillow for the couch. "So, would you?" he said quietly. The question had burned in him since MacLeod had first spoken her name.

"Would I what?"

"Stop her again."

MacLeod turned from the impromptu bed he was making and straightened. His dark eyes revealed confusion...and a little hurt.

"Methos... Did you listen to anything at all that I said last night?"

"It's a long way from deciding we can put up with each other to denying vengeance, a just vengeance, to a woman you've known for almost four hundred years."

"It's also a long way from reclaiming your best friend to letting a madwoman kill him," MacLeod answered, his voice cold. "You know, Methos, I don't think we covered all the right bases last night. Maybe when we finished with me trusting you, we should have moved on to you trusting me!"

_Best friend._ Methos turned, bracing both hands on the kitchen counter and trying very hard to breathe. _How long has it been since anybody called me that?_ He liked the sound of it, but he certainly hadn't earned the title.

It was true; he didn't trust the Highlander. He didn't trust anyone. How could he? Mac had been hiding his Immortal nature for four hundred years; Methos had been hiding his for five thousand. Secrecy had become a part of him, distrust a shield, discretion his only watchword... He had to be that way, in order to survive.

His back to MacLeod, Methos spoke, trying to explain. "I have been alive for five millennia," he said, his voice low and heavy with the weight of time. "I have known, in that time, enough people to overpopulate a small third world nation. Have you any idea, any idea at all, how many times in my life I've been hurt by someone I thought was a friend?" He took another breath, fighting down panic. "I've been betrayed by more friends than you've ever had, MacLeod. You think I can just push all that away, pretend it never happened?"

"None of those people were me, Methos."

The older Immortal turned then, faced his friend. "You don't get it. Mac, there is nothing you can say to me that hasn't, at some point in my past, been a lie that I believed from someone I trusted."

"If you let that matter, Methos, you're a fool." Mac closed the distance between them, and lay gentle hands on his shoulders. Methos closed his eyes, shutting out the mingled concern and frustration in his friend's expression.

Silence. Methos waited.

"Open your eyes, Methos," Mac said softly. "We're not finished, and I'll not have you running out on me, not physically and not like this."

Jaw clenched with the tense effort to remain still, Methos complied.

"Good. Now listen. Trust isn't something you run out of. It isn't something you feel. It's something you do because of what you feel."

"It's not that easy, Highlander."

"It is. Whatever it is that ties us together is either strong enough for you to trust me or it isn't. That's a choice I've made. Now you have to make it. You don't get to stop halfway across the bridge, Methos. You have to finish crossing, or go back."

"You're asking me to put my life in your hands. I don't think I can do that."

MacLeod dropped his hands from Methos' shoulders and reached for his coat. Took the katana from it, and put it in Methos' hands.

The older Immortal's breath caught in his throat. He knew what was coming, and he wasn't ready for it.

Mac guided the blade up to his own throat, and held it there. Methos felt the weight of the sword in his hands like the weight of years. He made no move, held the hilt lightly, almost negligently, ready to drop it at any moment. He wanted to look away, shut out the insistence in the MacLeod's eyes, but he couldn't tear his gaze away.

"See how easy it is?" Mac said, the ghost of a smile playing about his lips. He let go of the blade, spreading his hands wide. "Look -- no hands."

Methos himself had done this, done it without thinking, when it seemed Kalas would win a year or more ago. He'd challenged Mac, then offered his head, holding a blade to his own neck the way the Highlander had just done. It hadn't been about trust then. It had been about making sure that, failing all else, his Quickening did not go to Kalas.

There was no greater trust an Immortal could give than this. MacLeod's offer demanded an answer, repayment in kind.

_Easy_, Mac had said. Sure. Easy if you loved your friend more than you loved your life. Easy if you were willing to die to prove it. Did he? Was he?

He knew MacLeod could not harm him. He knew it with every part of his heart and mind. It was written in the eyes, something Methos had rarely seen. Something running deeper, perhaps, than friendship could account for. He closed his eyes again, this time just so he could breathe, fighting the flush of adrenaline that accompanied that thought. It had no place here, in this moment.

Finally, he was able to meet MacLeod's open gaze again.

_What risk is there, after all?_ he asked himself silently.

_None,_ a voice murmured back. His own.

It _was_ easy. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Methos lowered the sword, offered it. Brought the blade in close, just beneath his ear, never letting his eyes leave those of his friend. He tried to make the shared look convey his feelings: Fear. Hope. Trust. Certainty.

Mac held the pose for a long moment, standing still as marble, then nodded. He set aside the katana, and smiled. There was something like fierce joy in his dark eyes, and Methos was fairly certain it was reflected in his as well.

_Joy_. There was a scary thought. A large thought. Methos took refuge from its implications in small things...like a grin, quirking his lips up, easing the moment into something less intense. Something outside of the crucible that was burning away his defenses. "Mac?"

"Methos?"

Relaxing, slowly. "I really, badly need a beer."

Mac's laughter rang loud in the stillness of the room, and Methos joined in, feeling the knotted muscles in his neck begin to untangle themselves.

Flowing beneath the laughter, shining words arranged themselves in Methos' mind, unexpected. He brought them forth wonderingly, amazed that they could be there, and be real.

Said them to himself quietly, testing them for truth.

_I love this guy._

And then: _May the gods have mercy..._

  
   


* * *

  
   


Rain again.

Duncan listened to it falling, and wondered at the beauty of the sound. Yesterday's rain had seemed so much uglier, so dark and cold... This, though... This rain was like a curtain falling between his home and the world. Sealing him in comfort and safety.

Him, and Methos.

The distance between the couch and the bed was not so great that Duncan couldn't hear the soft breathing of his houseguest, or the rustle of sheets and blankets as he moved in his sleep. He felt a strong sense of satisfaction, knowing that Methos slept comfortably; the man had seemed so gaunt earlier, the skin beneath his eyes dark from lack of sleep.

It almost made him laugh, this protective instinct he was spending on a man who'd survived without him for five thousand years. Methos just looked so damned young... His first death had come when time had touched him but lightly; his face was unlined, his skin elastic and smooth, his body strong. Duncan's own first death had come to him when he was but a few years older than Methos' apparent age, but somehow, it seemed to make a difference. Even Richie, who stood in awe of Amanda and her mere one thousand years, seemed unable to think of Methos as any older than himself.

_Methos. Adam Pierson._ Duncan said the words in his mind, trying to sort the emotions attached to them. Very little in his life had prepared him for the kind of friendship he shared with the world's oldest living Immortal. Neither teacher nor student, father nor brother, Methos' presence in his life had become necessary in a way he couldn't define. It alternately amused and disturbed Duncan that it had taken him so long to see it.

The return of Kronos and the other Horsemen had pulled him away from that understanding, but couldn't block it for long. A part of him had raged against the violence and the killing Methos had done, but he had to admit that a deeper part had struck out at Methos not because of what he had done or who he had been, but because Kronos had threatened their friendship, and Methos had let him. The pain was equal parts jealousy and betrayal; in spite of all the things they'd shared and all the ways they'd come to understand one another, Methos hadn't trusted him enough to tell him about the Horsemen.

Now those wounds were finally beginning to heal, and though he had no basis for understanding and no way of explaining it even to himself, Duncan knew that his connection with Methos was both friendship and something deeper. Something that ran beneath the level of conscious decision. Instinctive. It seemed at times more a function of who they were rather than what either might feel; it had been incipient in them from the beginning. Contact only served to strengthen and deepen the tie into something that went beyond his appreciation for the man's complexity, beyond his joy in Methos' company.

A sound from behind broke into Duncan's thoughts, and he cleared his mind, listening. It came again... a whisper, low and harsh. Guttural. The words were barely audible, but he could tell from their cadence that they were of no language he had ever heard before.

The whisper stopped, cut off by a sharp inhalation, sounding like pain. Duncan rose from the couch and moved closer to the bed, unsure what to do.

Methos was in the grip of a dream, that much was obvious, and it didn't seem to be a pleasant one. In the myriad flashes of lightning illuminating the room in a slow, uneven strobe, Duncan could see that his friend's face was twisted into an expression built of equal parts panic and pain. The whispering began again, pulling him closer in hopes of understanding.

Nothing. The voice rose and fell in an unfamiliar pattern, syllables falling over one another until they were almost a chant. Duncan wanted to stop it, to somehow ease whatever night terror gripped Methos, but he was fairly certain he didn't want to get any closer. His knowledge of his friend's past and the proximity of his friend's sword combined in a telling argument against surprising the man.

Still, he couldn't bear the pain in Methos' voice, whatever it might be saying. Duncan moved to the foot of the bed, looking down on the man to whom he'd entrusted his life earlier in the evening, his heart near breaking at the anguish that twisted the sleeping man's features. Now that trust was being called upon, and to back away would be a small betrayal.

He didn't back away. He didn't think he could have if he'd wanted to.

Instead, he spoke softly, saying the older Immortal's name again and again, calling him forward, out of his dreams. It didn't take long. The whispers faded almost immediately, and seconds later Methos' eyes opened. There was no surprise in them; he hadn't expected there to be. He'd meant his voice as a safety line and a warning that he was near, and from the calm look in his friend's eyes, he'd been successful.

"Either you're getting smarter, or I'm getting scarier," Methos said quietly, waving a hand at the distance between them.

"Maybe both." Now that Methos was fully awake, Duncan did move closer, falling into a lotus position on the floor by the head of the bed.

"Thank you for waking me. You didn't have to," Methos said.

"You were having a nightmare," Duncan answered. A corner of his mouth quirked upward, half a smile. "It seemed like the thing to do."

Methos turned onto his side, propping his head up with one hand. "'To sleep, perchance to dream...'" he quoted softly. Then, in darker tones: "Hamlet had no idea."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"God, no. You'd put me away." Methos smiled a bit, reassuring.

Duncan nodded, letting it go, letting a comfortable silence fall between them. In the meager light from the window, brightened by occasional flashes of lightning, he could see the peace that had smoothed the nightmare's panic from Methos' expression. He felt safe observing, knowing his own features were hidden in silhouette.

"There was something I wanted to tell you," he said finally, his voice low. "When I heard you...I thought you might want to hear it."

"Yes?"

It was hard to form the words; hard to imagine they would have the impact he hoped. The impact Methos said they could. Duncan felt suddenly unsure of himself, as if there were an unspoken question between them to which he might not like the answer. "Just this," he said quickly, rough-voiced, before he could change his mind. "That I do claim you as my friend. Nothing will change that. If it took being a Horseman to make you who you are, the price was not too high."

"Duncan MacLeod," Methos said, a note of wonder in the quiet words. "You woke me up to chase my demons away, didn't you?"

"You said it helped," he answered. "I didn't like the thought of you in pain."

"It's been a long time since that mattered to anyone."

"It matters a very great deal to _me_," Duncan said, surprised again at just how much it did; somehow, in the months since they had met, Methos' peace of mind had become essential to his own.

Met with only silence, he moved to rise; Methos' hand on his stopped him. The grip was strong, almost painful, but after a moment it eased. "Don't," Methos said.

Something in his voice changed the timbre of the moment. The single word was spoken as if through a struggle, though no trace of turmoil marred Methos' expression. Duncan turned his hand up, returning the grip, offering strength if it were needed.

Methos carefully, deliberately, laced his long, slim fingers into Duncan's, eyes still watchful, and leaned close. Duncan felt a tremor in the hand that held his, a trembling that telegraphed itself through their touch, along his own nerves, and found he was holding his breath. Methos waited, unmoving, a question in his eyes.

A question Duncan, to his own surprise, that he could answer.

If there had been a point of choice, a moment when he could have turned aside and taken some other road, it had passed unnoticed and would never come again. Here, now, there were no decisions to be made -- or if there were, they had been made and forgotten long ago. Duncan tilted his head, closing the distance between them, and he felt the touch of cool lips ghosting over his. The pressure was light, gentle...testing. Methos' mouth warmed against his, and Duncan's body responded, adrenaline flooding through him, bringing his senses alive. He parted his lips, and felt the silken feather-touch of Methos' tongue reaching for his. Desire rocked him, sudden and unexpected, what should have been mere comfort turning deep and electric.

He pulled back, shuddering with the force of his reaction and the rapid, pounding beat of his own heart. That Methos wanted him, he had suspected. There had been moments -- many moments, if he were honest with himself -- when he'd felt his own body responding to his friend's slender, athletic form and easy, casual grace. Even so, he had not been prepared for the intensity of this reaction. That a simple meeting of lips could tear such a desperate response from him was totally unexpected, and Duncan closed his eyes, swallowing hard and trying to recover his equilibrium.

It was not to be allowed, not yet. Long fingers stroked lightly over Duncan's cheek, drawing him closer, and again Methos' mouth found his, opened it. Teeth nipping gently at his lower lip drew a low moan and a need to be a part of the touch. He leaned into the kiss, softening it, making of it a trembling exploration that left both of them shaken when, after long, dark moments, it finally ended.

Seconds passed wordlessly, neither willing to break the silence and address the questions each found in the other's eyes. After a long moment, Methos pulled his pillow back underneath his head, and closed his eyes.

Duncan moved closer to the bed, folded his arms on the edge of the mattress, and rested his head on top of them.

Sleep was slow in coming; vigilant, Duncan stood quiet sentry against dark dreams.

  
   


* * *

  
   


Morning came gently, overcast skies softening the light. Methos' eyes remained closed as he awakened, his body still as his other senses reported safety. No movement stirred the air, no footsteps sounded against the floor; only the gentle whirring of the loft's heater and the easy rise and fall of breathing from the vicinity of the couch broke the silence.

When he was reasonably certain that all was well within the four walls of the loft, Methos risked opening his eyes. Feigning sleep had saved his life on more than one occasion, and over the course of fifty centuries it had become instinctive, a programmed response to unfamiliar surroundings.

Not that these could be said to be that unfamiliar. He felt absurdly, childishly safe in the confines of the loft, a sensation that irritated him whenever he gave it serious thought. He hadn't survived five thousand years by wandering about feeling ~safe.~

It wasn't until he turned onto his side, looking for a clock, that the images of his nightmare and what had happened afterward returned to him.

Minutes ticked by, marked by slow brightenings as the sun climbed above the cloud cover and shortened the room's shadows. Coherent thought was a fond memory as Methos' mind spun in a near panic, unable to comprehend just how much might have changed in those brief moments of lightning and darkness.

Mac had awakened at some point in the night and moved back to the couch. It bothered Methos a little that someone had been moving so near him, and he had slept through it. Still, he was glad of the distance between them. He wondered if it would be possible to get out of the loft without waking MacLeod or, failing that, to convince himr it had all been a bad dream. A quick catalogue of how often that had worked in other lifetimes turned up little that gave him any hope.

_I know better than this._ One of the constants of his existence was a consummate skill at complicating his own life. _As if the Horsemen weren't enough. As if Cassandra weren't enough. If it were happening to someone else, I'd laugh for a week._

It wasn't looking very funny from the inside.

_Work it through, Adam..._ The voice in his mind, counseling logic, belonged to Joe Dawson. No surprise there; in their work as Watchers, it was always Joe who could find his way through to the heart of any report while Methos himself was still cursing field agents for sloppy handwriting and bad grammar. Methos worked on intuition and insight, while Joe, basically, just worked. Those words, which Joe had said to him on countless midnight Library raids at Watcher Headquarters, had a calming effect, like a soothing tea. _Work it through..._

_There is something supremely ironic,_ Methos thought with a wry grin, _about the oldest living Immortal turning to a middle-aged Watcher for help with his sex life, even if only in his own mind._ The thought buoyed his spirits somewhat; Watchers could be considered to be the world's oldest group of professional peeping toms, and Joe Dawson was one of the best Watchers he'd ever known. Wondering what his mortal friend would think of the events of the previous night was a pleasant distraction from wondering what MacLeod might think -- _Or do,_ part of him muttered darkly -- about them. Joe would surely be amused. Certainly intrigued. And of course he'd--

Methos' eyes widened in an expression of equal parts horror and helpless amusement.

_Dear Lord..._ Methos thought, dismayed. _He'd probably want to put it in Mac's Chronicle._

Cursed with a vivid imagination, the thought of Mac's reaction to such a Record was more than Methos could stand. All the tension of the last few days had left him defenseless against the many emotions the Highlander could call forth from him; this was no exception. He couldn't contain it; he didn't even want to.

And so it was to a ring of laughter, free and unrestrained, that Duncan MacLeod finally awakened in the chill, bright hours of a Saturday morning.

  
   


* * *

  
   


Methos had very clearly lost his mind.

It was one thing to be a morning person. Never mind that he knew Methos was not. It was quite another thing to be given to fits of laughter at unholy hours when the only other person around was in a dead slumber.

Duncan clawed his way out of sleep, a feeling of disorientation sweeping through him. For a moment he couldn't remember if it was morning or evening; the twilight brought on by heavy overcast outside only confused the issue. Sitting up, he cast a dark glance over his shoulder at the world's oldest man, who appeared to be in the final stages of some kind of seizure.

"Must be nice to be so easily entertained," Duncan said, standing up to stretch. The couch was very nice, good leather, pleasant color...but it was also about a foot too short. His shoulders complained intensely as he reached up with both arms, filling his lungs with air. He held the breath for a moment, then let it out slowly, feeling the cobwebs clear from his mind as his heart rate increased.

The burst of laughter had been short-lived, but the recovery period seemed to be taking some time. Duncan ignored Methos and eased into a limbering routine, smiling and feeling surprisingly tolerant now that he was on his feet. He was as much a morning person as Methos wasn't, and by the time his long, slow stretches were completed, his initial irritation at being awakened had long since faded.

After only a few moments, he paused, the sensation of being watched interrupting his stretches. He lowered his arms and turned to find Methos sitting at the foot of the bed in a lotus position, eyes following his every movement.

"Good morning," Duncan said. "Interesting wake-up call you've got there. That happen every morning, or is it more of a travel alarm kind of thing?"

"Let's just say that a significant portion of my five thousand years has been devoted to the development of a truly sick sense of humor."

"How useful of you."

"Hey, you're the social conscience of this team. I'm --"

"--just a guy. Right." He leveled a frank gaze at his friend, wondering who was going to mention the topic they were both avoiding first. He rather suspected Methos' attempts at humor were nothing more than diversionary tactics, designed to give him a little space from which to bolt. Duncan himself wasn't certain what the previous night's moments of sharing and passion would mean to them, but he was long past the age of running from something simply because it was new and unexpected.

"What time is our meeting today?" he asked casually, setting out cups for coffee.

"_Our_ meeting?"

"If you think you're going without me, you obviously didn't get enough sleep."

"Ten, I believe," Methos answered. "Barring any tests or whatever they might spring on her." Duncan turned at the suddenly solemn tone in Methos' voice, studying the man. "She's lucky," Methos continued, eyes turned inward. "She'll be going home. So many don't, Mac."

"First time since..."

"...Since Alexa. Yes."

"I could go alone, you know. You can wait here."

"No, Mac, I have to be there." Methos' tone brooked no discussion. "I'll be fine with it."

"Will you?"

Methos summoned up a smile that was probably meant to be reassuring. "Ancient history," he said. "Don't worry about me."

Duncan poured a cup of steaming coffee and waited for Methos to cross the room and claim it. "I don't seem to have a choice," he said when their eyes met.

"Then get help," Methos said sharply, turning away from the look.

Duncan regarded his friend in silence. The green-gold eyes that refused to look at him were capable of so many shadings, so many variations of emotion; the past few days had been a crash course in the interpretation of Methos' many expressions. This one required no study, however: 'Defensive' was one he'd learned early on.

He set his mug down on the counter and moved a step closer, expecting to see Methos tense up and not being disappointed. Duncan reached up, and touched the other man's chin, turning Methos to face him again. Methos didn't resist, but the walls were still up in his eyes.

"We have to talk about this," Duncan said gently. "It's not just going to disappear."

"Don't patronize me, MacLeod. I'm thirteen times your age."

"And look at how much good it does you. Such maturity, Methos. I'm in awe." He smiled, tilting his head to catch Methos' eyes.

Methos sighed. "You are remarkably lacking in respect for your elders."

"I'm still waiting to find one who deserves it." Duncan smiled to soften the sting. "So...can we talk about what happened?"

Methos set his empty mug aside and folded his arms across his chest. "Is it really necessary, MacLeod?" The note of wistfulness in his voice was mirrored in his eyes.

Duncan let the question pass for a moment, simply looking at his friend. Methos leaned easily against the counter next to the fridge, feet braced against the floor in front of him, seemingly unaware of the picture he presented. Even tense, there was a fluid grace about him, as if even his smallest movements were under subconscious control. Though Methos was slimmer than Duncan, there was a sense of carefully leashed power in the lines of his long, lean form. He found that the physical responses he'd discovered the night before were still in working order; the need to touch, and be touched, was perhaps even stronger than it had been.

It wasn't the first time he'd found himself appreciating a masculine physique. It wasn't even the first time he'd acted on that appreciation, though the confused fumblings of youth could hardly be counted as experience. It was, however, the first time he'd ever felt an emotional connection to a man whose body stirred him. The first time he'd ever found himself wanting a man he knew and trusted...and cared for. Loved? Yes. A man he loved.

And it was that thought that sealed it. It was a step in a new direction, something only rarely contemplated...but it felt right. Love, respect, and passion were too rare a combination to be surrendered because the package had a "Y" where Mac usually preferred an "X". A hundred years ago, such a thought might have disturbed him; now, today, it brought only a flash of warm amusement. _You're never too old to learn something new..._

"You're beautiful," Duncan said finally, by way of answer.

"MacLeod!" The word came out strangled, Methos' voice strident with surprise. "Cut it out."

"I don't think I will," he replied, his eyes bright with incipient laughter. "Besides, you started it."

"I did no such thing."

"You've been watching me since I woke up," Duncan said smugly. "Did you think I didn't notice?"

"You were the only moving object in the room, Mac. Sue me."

The difference in their heights was exaggerated by Methos' habitual slouch, but not so much that the distance was too great. Carefully, watching the other man's eyes, Duncan raised his hands to Methos' shoulders, fingers sinking into the muscles at the base of his neck, kneading gently. A sharp gasp of pleasure rewarded him for his troubles.

"That's not fair, Mac..." Methos said, eyes drifting closed as Duncan's fingers found and soothed knots of tension.

"Not meant to be." Duncan eased his hands up, strong fingers pressing into the muscles that lined the bones of Methos' neck, and traced the strong lines of his jaw with the pads of his thumbs. A gentle pressure, tilting Methos' face upward. The hazel eyes had darkened, and Duncan could feel the racing of Methos' pulse beneath his hands.

"Are you ready to talk?" Duncan said softly, smiling. "The coffee is getting cold..."

Methos made a sound that was almost a moan, and pushed away from the counter, his hands moving up to Duncan's face and pulling it down to his. There was nothing tentative in this meeting, no sense of testing as there'd been the night before. Methos' lips were open as they met those of his friend, and Duncan welcomed them with rising hunger. He didn't know when control shifted, when Methos became the one directing the kiss, but neither could he find it in himself to care.

Oh, he wanted this. The tender trespass of lips and tongues, the warm, sweet taste of this man who held him now, resistance vanished... Last night had been a promise; this was the promise kept. Duncan's arms shifted, closed around the lean shoulders and pulled Methos' body against his, pressing close. Any distance between them seemed too much, and desire was too kind a word for the need that burned inside him, inside both of them, demanding everything and offering no quarter.

Duncan couldn't find his voice to protest when Methos' hands pressed against his shoulders, opening a space between their bodies, cooling. Eyes still closed, he could hear Methos struggling for breath. The tension in the hands clenched, viselike, over his shoulders bespoke a battle for control that matched his own.

Slowly, passion receded enough for clarity.

He opened his eyes, wary, afraid of what he might find in those of his friend. If he read denial there, or regret, he was going to break something. Possibly someone. Probably Methos.

He needn't have worried. Methos' hands had gentled on his shoulders, but remained there, a warm touch that remembered being more. A smile, slightly bemused, tilted the corners of his lips. The hazel eyes held affection, amusement, and no small amount of astonishment at what had passed between them.

"You win," he said softly, breathless. "We talk."

  
   


* * *

  
   


Methos wasn't sure what he needed more -- coffee, to banish the last fuzziness of sleep, or a beer, to take the edge off his senses. The fact that coffee was a stimulant and alcohol relaxed inhibitions made the decision that much harder; the effects of either, at this point, would be redundant.

He'd assumed that last night had been about comfort, something MacLeod had given in to out of kindness for a friend. It was almost laughable, now; whatever it had been before, what Mac was offering him in the kitchen had very little to do with comfort. It had been as pretty a seduction as any Methos had ever seen, and now the curiosity was driving him insane. Where had MacLeod had an opportunity to gain that kind of experience? Methos had read the Chronicles; hell, they'd been his bedtimes stories for a year before he'd ever ~met~ the man. If such a thing had even been hinted at, Methos would have known about it. If there'd been so much as a rumor, he'd spent enough money on enough nights at Joe's to have picked them up from the Watcher by now. Joe Dawson respected his assignment's privacy, but Methos had found that on occasion, he respected a really fine bottle of single-malt a little more.

The thought that there might be no experience in Mac's past was blatantly frightening. If this was the Highlander as an amateur, Methos did not want to be around when the man started learning.

It had been a very, very long time since Methos had felt compelled to restrict his affections to one gender. In so much time, the externals lost their meaning. Difficult to limit affection when it warmed his heart and body as well in either form. Difficult to limit love based on the taboos and customs of civilizations whose birth and fall he'd witnessed personally.

And those were just the surface excuses. At the heart of it was simply this: Methos had never been overly fond of limits.

The sound of the shower from behind the bathroom door shut off suddenly, and Methos deliberately turned his back to the rest of the room, leaning back against the center island with arms folded across his chest. Before leaving to get cleaned up, MacLeod had made it clear that they had much to discuss, and Methos wanted to be in control of his senses and emotions when that time came. The last thing he needed was to have his resolve tested by a half-naked Scot whose idea of a good time was to see how fast he could turn the world's oldest man into putty.

He was beginning to seriously wonder what he'd gotten himself into.

He loved Duncan MacLeod. It was a fact, an emotion that had grown steadily from the very beginning, winding its way through stages of friendship and trust until it was inextricably woven into the bond the two men shared. And Methos wanted him. This, too, had progressed beyond the point of plausible deniability. Taken separately, neither of these were a problem. Together...

Together they made the world's oldest living Immortal very, very nervous.

Methos had never been one to give hostages to fortune. He'd remained apart, detached, never quite offering everything to the people he allowed into his life. It was insanity to fall too hard, to get too close; there were so many ways a lover could be used against you. So many people willing to hurt anyone just to get to you....

Behind him, the bathroom door opened. Methos didn't move, even when the sound of footsteps approached. His hands tightened where they gripped his biceps, the discomfort bringing clarity but no keen insight into how to handle MacLeod.

"Are you all right?"

The voice came from the other side of the island, deep with concern, and Methos let out a pent up breath, relieved. Words, rather than touch. Words he could fight, but against touch he was defenseless when it came to Duncan MacLeod.

"I can think of ten reasons, just off the top of my head, why none of this should be happening, Mac," he said, striving for a reasonable tone.

Behind him, a sigh. Methos fought the urge to turn and look, an action that he was sure would end the conversation then and there. Nothing could be solved by whatever he might do confronted with the caring, pleading look Mac would almost certainly be wearing. The look that said clearly, _Do the right thing...for me?_ That expression had worked too well, too many times in the past for the Mac to abandon the tactic now.

Just the thought of it made him want to turn and say _Yes. All right. Whatever you want._

"Then it won't happen," Mac said softly.

Methos' heart seemed to still in his chest. If anything, that thought made him more uncomfortable than the alternative. "Well," he said after a moment, releasing the breath he'd been holding. "I'm glad that's settled."

"No, you're not. If you were, you'd be able to look at me."

"There's a difference between 'can't' and 'won't', Mac. I'm not looking at you because I'm not an idiot. I'd like us to try to have a conversation here. You know...one with words?"

"You've never had a problem doing both before."

"You've never looked at me like..."

"Like what?" Mac challenged.

"Like I'm a five course meal and you're fresh from a hunger strike," Methos snapped, exasperated. "It's unnerving."

Mac laughed, real amusement breaking through the tension. "You're terrified, aren't you," he said. Methos could hear Mac's smile in his voice. "You don't have to be."

It was a little too much truth. Methos sighed, eased away from the counter and turned. The smile, he found, was as compelling as he'd remembered. "What if I can't help it?"

"Then you let me show you that there's nothing to fear. Methos, I don't know what's happened here any more than you do, but last night changed things for me. I don't know any better way to put it."

"It changed everything, for both of us," Methos said.

"Does that have to be a bad thing?"

"There's no way for it to be anything else. Mac, we do this...we change our friendship in this way...and we just might lose our heads." His eyes pleaded with the Highlander for understanding.

"You're not listening, to me or to yourself. It's already changed, Methos. All we can do now is decide what to do about it."

"Standard response," Methos said, his voice low and direct. "Do nothing."

"And you think we can do that?" Half of a smile curved Mac's lips. "Really?"

"God, Mac, how can you take this so lightly? You should be the one fighting this, not me!"

"What, because it's new? Because it's different? Methos, you should know me better than that." Mac's eyes were stormy with a mix of disapointment and frustration. "Have I given you some cause to think I'd be that narrow-minded?"

"You've never given me cause to think you wouldn't be."

"Well, forgive me," Mac said, voice deep with sarcasm. "Let me just add that to my list of 'things to discuss with formerly mythical Immortal Watchers'."

Methos let out a startled laugh. "All right!" he said, trying to kill a treacherous smile. "Forget I asked."

MacLeod shook his head, watching his friend carefully. "Methos, this is a very simple concept. I care about you. You care about me, too, don't you?"

_Heaven help me..._ Methos thought, feeling his resolve crumbling at the note of uncertainty in the younger Immortal's voice. _He won't fight this, and I can't do it alone..._ "Of course I care," he said softly. "Never doubt that."

The relief in the Highlander's soft gaze was nearly Methos' undoing. He sighed, closing his eyes and struggling to think past his emotions. He loved Mac, and he wanted him, but he was so very, very afraid for him. For both of them. Though the Highlander might not be fully aware of it, they weren't talking about something simple. Allowing Mac to hold a sword to his throat had been a symbolic thing; allowing Mac to become his lover would put them both in danger that was very real.

MacLeod was a target because he wanted to be, his very nature a challenge to any Immortal looking for trouble. Anyone standing next to Mac for more than ten minutes was likely to get drawn into a fight. Methos, on the other hand, was a target for the simple reason that he'd survived five thousand years. He'd done it by being MacLeod's polar opposite, keeping a low profile and fighting only when it was unavoidable.

He wasn't about to change that without a fight.

So, one final effort. "They'll use us against each other," he said quietly, putting the force of his fears into calm, low tones. "Anyone who discovers what we mean to one other can hurt us through one another. Cassandra is already hunting us. Last night you wouldn't let me leave because of her. Do I move in here until she either goes away or kills one of us? I care about you, Mac, and I fairly love your housing situation, but I'm about two thousand years past the desire to set up housekeeping with anybody, let alone a man with more enemies than sense."

MacLeod gave him a look rich in disgust. "You're talking about dangers we accepted when we became friends. Kalas came for you; I killed him. Kristin came for me; you killed her. It'll happen again, whatever we decide to do about this...new development."

"And when Cassandra comes for me, Mac? When she makes you choose? Who dies then, Highlander?"

"If she makes me choose," MacLeod said deliberately, matching Methos' intensity, "she's already chosen for me."

Mac's words, so simple, stripped Methos bare, defenseless. The older Immortal knew what the statement cost his friend, whose ideas of morality began and ended with the protection of the weak, and whose sixteenth century sensibilities rarely let him see a woman as strong. "You would do that?" he whispered, slightly awed. "For me?"

Mac shook his head. "No. For myself. I _will not_ lose you, Methos. Can't you understand that? What do I have to say to get through to you?"

"Nothing." His eyes found those of his friend, and the last vestiges of reluctance slipped away from him. Methos was done with fighting. Done with resisting something he wanted so much that act of wanting alone frightened him with its intensity. He stretched out his hand, offering, and tugged gently when Mac took it, pulling him in.

His hands moved up, glided over the smooth skin of Mac's throat, stroked the back of his neck. Mac tilted his head back into the touch, and Methos' breath caught in his throat at the sheer grace and beauty of the man he'd come to love. To be standing together, touching his friend in the gentle light of a hazy morning, was almost too much. There would be no backing down from this moment, no pushing away. Giving in to it was both easier and more frightening than he'd imagined it would be.

Mac held himself still beneath his touch, waiting, but Methos could feel the tremors that belied Mac's control, muscles shifting subtly under the smooth, bronzed skin. He traced a lazy pattern beneath the long fall of dark hair, skimming over sensitive nerve endings in a slow spiral caress. The touch drew a hiss of indrawn breath from MacLeod, followed by a nearly inaudible moan. Methos smiled, feeling his own response building, but holding back. For the moment he was content to revel in the slow, gentle seduction of his friend.

He leaned in, and pressed his lips softly to Mac's throat, barely a touch; his breath whispered over the taut skin, tongue reaching to taste here... and here... then moving on, lingering when rewarded by a gasp or a sigh. For long, sweet moments Methos explored with gentle lips, dusting light kisses over Mac's face, approaching but never quite touching his lips. Mac's mouth opened, sensing deprivation, and Methos smiled, anticipating the feel of those lips against his skin.

When he pulled back, his fingers traced the path his lips had taken, moving finally to trace the full, soft shape of Mac's mouth. A slight movement, and teeth closed gently around his fingertip, biting; the pressure increased, and Methos shivered, a shock of desire coursing through him from the point of contact. Mac's eyes met his, dark with promise and invitation.

"I think," Methos said unsteadily, trembling, "that the verbal part of this conversation is over." The last words were nearly lost as he gasped, feeling Mac's tongue darting against the pad of his finger, stroking over the skin in a deliberate rhythm.

_He has no mercy,_ Methos thought, barely coherent. The gentle suction was evocative of images less innocent, bringing him to a sudden, aching hardness. _God, how I need this...._

Another bite, less gentle, drained the last of his resistance. Methos gave in to it, closing his eyes, shifting his hands. He buried his fingers in MacLeod's long, dark hair and tugged the taller man's head down, wanting to touch him, taste him. When Mac resisted, a frustrated moan escaped Methos' lips.

"I want you," Mac whispered, rapidly failing control roughening his voice.

"I know," Methos said, tilting his head back, feeling MacLeod's hands hard and strong as they gripped his shoulders.

"We have a little time," Mac said. "Not much, but--"

"There's time."

"Do you--"

"MacLeod," Methos hissed, breath coming in rapid gasps, "If you say another word, if you wait another second..."

He didn't have to say it. The lips he wanted to touch so badly found his, soft, Mac's tongue swiftly teasing him, opening him to the kiss. Methos was shaken by the depth of his response, a need he hadn't felt for decades ripping through him, bringing him to a shattering awareness of touch. He nipped gently at Mac's lower lip, and was rewarded with a low moan; drew Mac's tongue into his mouth, and was rocked by its savage exploration. MacLeod's hands slipped down, fitting Methos' body against his growing erection.

"This is what you want?" Mac whispered against Methos' lips, shifting his body, building a heated friction between them. He turned his head, mouth slanting down across Methos' jawline, lower, settling in the sweet hollow just beneath his ear. Yesterday, MacLeod had pressed cold steel against the same tender skin; the memory, mingled with the silken touch of a warm tongue and gentle suction, was stunningly erotic.

"God, yes...." A gasp was torn from Methos' throat as Mac pushed at his hips, made a space between them, and drew a firm caress across the bulge beneath his zipper. The touch seared into him, the warmth of Mac's hand seeping through the fabric, the pressure both ease and torment. He arched into it, and felt more than heard MacLeod's groan as his response registered. Methos' own hands descended, pressing deep into the hard muscles of his partner's buttocks. The fingers that drove Methos close to the edge of completion receded, then found the snap at the waist of his jeans.

And both men froze, eyes widening in amazement and no little panic, as the first subtle twinges of _Presence_ filtered through their mutual desire.

Methos struggled for control, his groin aching with the need MacLeod had coaxed from him, and backed away. He held a hand out when Mac would have followed him, keeping his partner at arm's length, and moved quickly, grabbing his sword from his coat. The elevator was moving, old gears groaning to life as the two men backed away from the razor edge of passion.

"Hello...?" a light, feminine voice called from the ascending lift.

Amanda. Methos glared at MacLeod, who raised his eyebrows and shook his head, denying any foreknowledge.

Methos leaned forward and pressed a hard kiss against Mac's lips, a promise of more to come. He pulled back, and whispered quickly, "I'll kill her and send the elevator back down. We'll deal with the body later; yes?"

"No," Mac answered with a shaky smile. "But I'm tempted."

MacLeod, ever courteous, waited by the elevator to greet his guest. Methos remained in the kitchen, leaning against the countertop and thanking whatever gods protected ancient Immortals that his pullover was long enough to conceal the evidence of his arousal. While fond of Amanda in theory, in practice his joy at seeing her knew definite bounds. _Especially right now,_ he complained inwardly, sighing.

MacLeod lifted the elevator guard and stepped back. She breezed in without acknowledging the invitation, casting a brilliant smile over her shoulder at both of the men before settling herself in the center of the leather couch.

"So," she said, eyes twinkling merrily. "What've I missed?"

  
   


* * *

  
   


"Why don't I just go on ahead to meet Joe?" Methos deliberately failed to look at MacLeod. "You can catch up later."

"Why don't you stay right where you are?" MacLeod said, his voice deceptively pleasant. "As we planned."

Amanda glanced from one man to the other. "I was hoping you guys had kissed and made up."

"We were examining that possibility when you arrived," Methos said dryly. A noise that might have been a cough was rapidly smothered by MacLeod, and Methos kept his eyes averted, trying not to grin.

"So, are we all friends again?"

MacLeod sighed, and rolled his eyes heavenward. "Methos and I are fine. _You_ and I, however...."

"Now, Duncan, don't be angry. I was only trying to help, and it seems to have worked out all right."

"Yes, it has -- after a great deal of turmoil that could have been averted if we'd been allowed to work things out in our own time." Mac's words were stern, but it was clear he was wavering between gratitude and irritation at Amanda's interference. Methos approved of the irritation; there was, after all, a certain principle involved.

"I'm not going to apologize," she said calmly. "I did a good thing, and you owe me. How about taking me to brunch?"

"I do not, and I'm busy." Mac cast a hopeful look at Methos, who had busied himself in deep contemplation of the ceiling tiles above him. "Methos and I have a meeting."

"In about forty-five minutes," Methos said. "Speaking of which -- can I use your phone?"

"Sure. What for?"

"If you insist on coming with me, I'd like to warn Joe."

An expression of pain flickered in Mac's dark eyes, and he pressed his lips together into a hard line. Methos closed his eyes briefly in mute apology. "To warn him to clear out any Watchers who might be lurking around," he clarified. "We don't need to have our involvement with Marta becoming part of her personnel file. In the past, consorting with the scions of the Clan MacLeod has proven unhealthy for certain Watchers." Methos hoped Mac knew better than to think it general goodwill that made him think of Marta's well-being; she had earned consideration by warning them about Cassandra. Still, Mac would probably count as kindness what Methos counted as a simple transaction. With an effort, Methos refrained from setting the record straight.

Mac's tension eased, and he smiled. "That sounds almost compassionate, Methos. Have you suddenly found a conscience?"

"I wear my heart on the inside, Mac," he said. "That doesn't mean I don't have one."

"What's going on, Duncan?" Amanda asked. "Are you in some kind of trouble?"

"Not me," Mac said. "It's--"

"A mutual friend," Methos interrupted smoothly. He moved into the living area, between the other two Immortals. Then, turning to MacLeod: "Phone book, Mac?"

MacLeod took the hint. "I'll get it," he said, retreating to the kitchen, leaving Methos free to do what Mac probably couldn't: Lie to a friend.

"It's nothing you need concern yourself with," Methos said. "We're just visiting a friend of mine who's in hospital. She's a Watcher."

"She's ill?"

"She was attacked," Methos said shortly.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Amanda said. "I hope she'll be all right?"

"She'll be fine. But you see why it's not a good idea for you to come, don't you? Your Watcher would report the visit, and Marta would be in trouble."

"What about your Watcher, _Adam?_"

"Don't have one. Not an official one, anyway--Joe has a close friend keeping an eye on me, but he's not technically my Watcher and he only reports to Joe. So we're fine...as long as you don't tag along and mess things up for everybody." His words were harsh, but softened by the plea in his hazel eyes.

Slowly, Amanda nodded. "Okay," she said, shaking her head in resignation. "It's your party. I'll just stay here until you get back. Get some reading done, something like that."

"Not a good idea," Methos said. "You have to leave before I do, and take your Watcher away with you. They can't see Adam Pierson here, Amanda," he said gently.

Her dark eyes flashed, and she turned on MacLeod, who had just returned with the phone book. "You know, sometimes I think Jakob Galati had the right idea," she said with disgust. "I hate this! Sneaking around, hiding, and just when you think you've lost one, another pops up to take his place."

"Might as well blame me as the Watchers, Amanda," Methos said seriously. "It's my cover we're protecting. If I were living openly as an Immortal, none of this would be necessary."

Amanda's frown softened, became apologetic. "I'm sorry," she said. "I know why you do it. Methos has to remain a myth."

She stood up, and went to the elevator, pausing with a hand on the guard. "So I'll go," she said. "But I'll be back, and you can believe that Joe's going to hear about this from me. I'm not going to be run out of my friends' homes by little Watcher drones for the rest of my life."

"Thank you, Amanda," Mac said, smiling as the elevator began to descend. "We'll let you know when it's safe to come back."

"And we'll give you a number," Methos muttered under his breath, "so you can call first."

  
   


* * *

  
   


Methos couldn't help feeling a little paranoid as he and MacLeod rode up to the third floor of the hospital, the ancient elevator clanking with arthritic distress as it slowly heaved itself upward. He thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his overcoat, only moderately comforted by the hard length of metal that pressed into his ribs with the movement. "I hope Joe knows what he's doing," he muttered, hunching his shoulders. "All we need is another Dan Geiger lurking about, and I'm toast."

"Thanks for that thought," Mac said, not looking at Methos. "I was feeling a little too secure."

"I noticed," Methos replied. "Why d'you think I said it?" A quick grin softened the warning, but didn't detract from his intent. He wanted Mac on edge, as he was. Prepared.

The elevator ground to a stop, and Methos stuck his head out, sighting down the long white corridor in either direction. It wasn't really necessary -- if there were Watchers, he wouldn't see them -- but it made him feel a bit better nonetheless. "Come on," he said, turning left and moving quickly ahead of MacLeod. "It's this way."

"How do you know which way it is?" Mac said, hurrying to catch up.

"I had to bring Alexa here for some tests before we left on our tour. Marta's room should be just past the labs." Methos voice was neutral, not reflecting the pain that came with the memories. Being in the hospital made him uncomfortable on many levels, only one of which had anything to do with Cassandra; the thought of the mortals, the people, behind the doors that lined the hallway made him feel slightly ill. They were all so fragile...so easily broken and so very hard to repair. He'd spent at least one lifetime that he could recall studying medicine, easing pain, healing when he could. In the end, constant exposure to the inevitability of their deaths had been too much. Alexa's life had touched his so briefly that sometimes it was easy to lose the moments they'd shared in the vastness of his memory, but this... the sharp, chemical smell of mingled antiseptics, medicines, sterile cleansers... this would always bring the pain and horror of her death, and all the others, back to him.

Whatever life he might choose, now that his existence as a Watcher had ended, he didn't see the field of medicine in his future.

A hand on his arm stopped him just as they reached the door to Marta's room, his momentum spinning him to face MacLeod.

"Methos," Mac said firmly. "You don't have to do this. Go back to the loft. `I can handle this."

Methos took a deep breath, nostrils flaring, and avoided his friend's gaze. "No, you can't," he said. "Mac, I have a very strong suspicion that we're going to find more than a slightly worse-for-wear Watcher on the other side of this door. If I'm right..." He paused, and looked up into Mac's eyes. "If I'm right, Mac, she needs us right now a lot more than we need her."

Without another word, Methos turned and opened the door.

  
   


* * *

  
   


Inside, Joe Dawson was resting in a chair beside the bed, eyes closed; Methos wondered how long the man had been there, guarding his friend. The lines in his face seemed to cut deeper today, exhaustion adding years he hadn't earned to the rugged features. Methos stepped close, and rested a gentle hand on one shoulder. "Joe?"

Joe's eyes opened quickly, his body going on alert for a moment before he recognized the man beside him. A deep breath eased him out of his shock. "Adam," he said, smiling. "Good to see you."

Methos returned the smile, feeling better as Joe's expression lightened. "Same here. Listen, Joe...Mac's out in the hall. Go easy, okay?"

Joe nodded slowly. "How is he?" he said, voice low. "I wanted to call...to apologize, I guess...but..."

"But you didn't have anything to apologize for," Methos finished, smiling. "You're too good to be true, Dawson."

Joe laughed softly. "So I'm told."

Both men looked up as MacLeod entered the room, stopping just inside the door. Even now, with a stoic expression hiding the insecurity Methos knew he must be feeling, MacLeod was enough to take his breath away. Searching for distraction, his eyes fell on the woman sleeping peacefully in the hospital bed.

"How long has she been sleeping?" he asked quietly.

"About an hour," Joe said. Then: "Come on in, Mac. Shut the door, will you?"

A look of gratitude flashed from Methos to Joe, too quick for MacLeod to see.

"How is she?" A brief nod from Mac acknowledged Joe's greeting; all the reconciliation they could spare for the moment.

"Not as bad as it seemed at first. No concussion, for one thing...just a nasty bump. They confirmed that with X-rays last night, so she was able to get a lot of rest. Bruised ribs rather than broken, like we first thought, a sprained wrist...she got that during the escape, though. They're letting her go home this afternoon."

Methos looked at Joe speculatively. "Before I talk to her, Joe, I need to ask you a few questions. You had a chance to debrief her?"

"Not extensively, but enough to get most of the story. Just what I told you on the phone...why?"

"How did she seem?"

"Like she'd just been beaten up by an Immortal bitch," Joe said irritably. "How else was she going to seem? She was a little confused, a little out of it."

"Did she ask for anyone?"

Joe's brow furrowed. "Just me. What are you getting at, Adam? What's going on?"

Methos looked up at MacLeod, his eyes serious. "I'm going to need you," he said simply. It was a risk, calling so soon on the newborn trust between them, but Methos knew he couldn't do what needed to be done if he had to worry about Joe's interference. When Mac nodded, he turned back to the Watcher. "Joseph, I've got to talk to her, and I'm not going to be able to hold your hand while I do it. I don't think you're going to like much of what I have to do in the next few minutes. I need you to trust me. Can you do that?"

"Adam...what the hell are you talking about?" Something like panic had settled into Joe's expression.

Methos cursed under his breath, understanding settling in too late. A friend, Joe had said. Sure... a friend so devoted that she broke her oath as a Watcher to warn MacLeod about Cassandra, just because Mac was Joe's friend. A quick look into Joe's eyes confirmed it; whatever the woman on the bed might be to Joe, it went significantly beyond simple friendship.

"Trust me," he said again. "Joe, you and I have been friends for years. I wouldn't do anything that would hurt her, or you. You know that." Methos knelt, bringing himself down to eye level with the man in the chair. One hand squeezed Joe's shoulder, reassuring. "You have my word, Joe," he said softly. "Marta won't come to harm because of me."

_Because of me,_ he repeated silently, bitterly, resenting the necessity of qualifying his words. It was closer than he liked to come to a lie to Joe Dawson.

A moment of silence elongated between them. Slowly, still shaken by the intensity in Methos' gaze, Joe nodded.

It was all Methos needed. His head jerked once in acknowledgement of Joe's trust, and he rose, turning his attention back to the woman in the bed.

"Marta," he said sharply, calling her out of sleep. There was no gentleness in his voice; there was neither need nor use for it at this point.

Her eyes opened instantly. He looked into them, hazel eyes searching bright blue. She was a handsome woman, still slim and athletic at fifteen or more years past Methos' apparent age. Somewhere between forty-five and fifty, he estimated, though she could have been younger; he'd never been good at guessing mortals' age. Odd, that it should be easier for him to judge years with ageless Immortals, but he didn't think he was too far off the mark with Marta. Her hair was dark, but held touches of silver at each temple; it was loose against her pillow, long and curling. There were lines at the corners of her eyes and lips; she smiled a lot from the look of it. Her face wasn't what he would call beautiful, but there was a certain charm to her strong, even features that few would fail to appreciate. It wasn't hard to miss what Joe saw in her.

She hadn't been sleeping. There was an awareness in her eyes too alert to have just come alive. "Joe?" she said, turning to find him. Eyes widening as she saw MacLeod. "Joe...what's going on?"

"Marta, this is Adam Pierson," Joe said. "He used to be one of us. And I don't think I need to introduce you to Duncan MacLeod...?"

"Of the Clan MacLeod," she said, smiling a little. There was awe in her voice, but it was tempered by maturity. "I didn't expect to ever meet you," she said.

Even now, Methos had to supress a grin as he watched MacLeod turn on the charm. "If all the other Watchers are like you," Mac said, smiling, "I might have to start doing some Watching myself."

The blush that rose in her cheeks, and the smile that accompanied it, brought her perilously close to beauty. Methos noted that her reactions were becoming less forced. More fluid. It was time to move.

He reached down and took her hand in his, looking into her eyes and pinning her with the intensity of his gaze. "Marta, I know what's happened to you. I know what she did." There was no need to question her; anything answer she gave would either be a lie or a truth calculated to mislead. Cassandra's mark was on her, in the walled off watchfulness of her eyes. It was a look he'd seen before, and it made his stomach lurch with sympathy. The knowledge of what this woman must be feeling cut through his practiced detachment and burned him with a cold, brittle anger. "She didn't beat you, did she," he said softly, with iron control. "You did this to yourself."

"I don't understand," Marta said, her voice high and sharp. "What are you talking about?"

"It's all right." He didn't answer, because he wasn't speaking to the woman who'd asked the question. He was speaking to the one behind the carefully calculated responses, the one behind the walls in her eyes. "I'm going to fix it so you can talk to me. You'll only have a few seconds, Marta, and I need you to make them count. All of our lives may depend on it."

Marta's look became frantic, flitting from MacLeod to Joe. "Joe," she said. "Joe? What is he...I don't want to talk to him anymore..."

Joe turned an anguished look on Methos. "Adam, stop this," he said. "That's enough."

"Joe, if I stop now, Marta is as good as dead. Trust me." His steady gaze called on the depth respect and friendship established between them long past. "I know what I'm doing," he said firmly.

Joe's lips tightened around another protest, and he turned away. Methos let out a long, low breath, relief slumping his shoulders. A quick glance at MacLeod, a slight nod. _Trust,_ Methos thought with wonder. Hearing Mac say the words had been one thing; seeing the proof of them was quite another. _Thank you, Highlander..._

Methos reached down and enfolded Marta's hand in his own. He expected resistance, and was not disappointed; a vise-like grip, probably bruising, kept her fingers trapped in his.

"Marta," he said gently. "I'm starting now. Be ready."

From inside his coat, Methos pulled forth the dagger that served him as a back-up; it shone cold brilliance in the antiseptic glare of the overhead lights. Wordlessly, relentlessly, Methos pried open the woman's fingers and closed them tight around the blade. His own grip closed over hers, squeezing; a thin rivulet of blood slid down the blade.

"Adam!" Methos glanced up sharply at Joe's strangled outburst, but it wasn't necessary; MacLeod had Joe's shoulders in a firm but gentle grip, holding him at bay. A quick nod released Methos from worry; he turned back to the woman on the bed, finding both pain and fear in her bright eyes.

Slowly, unflinching, he slid both their hands down the blade. Blood flowed freely over the metal, staining it red.

A gasp of surprise and pain escaped Marta's lips, a cry bitten off sharply as the blade's edge laid her flesh open to the bone. Her hand convulsed, squeezing the metal, someone new blazing in her eyes.

"She's waiting!" Marta said quickly, her voice breaking, coming in quick gasps as she struggled for control of her body and her mind. "She's waiting, with others, mortals. Don't go to her! She wants MacLeod and then you--"

Her voice cracked, broke open over rapid, tidal breaths that contorted left her faint and shaking.

"No!" Methos shouted as Joe tried to break away from MacLeod, throwing up a hand to ward the man off. "It's all right," he continued softly when the fit of hyperventilation had passed and the rapid heaves of her chest had calmed. "Wait. I've seen this before."

In fewer moments than even Methos had expected, Marta opened her eyes. One look reassured him; she was there, rattled and afraid but still intact. Still sane. Methos took her hand in his again -- hers torn and bleeding, his already repaired. With his free hand and his teeth, he tore a strip from the top of the bedsheet and quickly wrapped it around her palm, training from another lifetime taking over as he calmly tended the wound.

He kept her hand when the bandaging was complete, and met her blue eyes. "Thank you," he said softly, with mingled gratitude and respect. "Oh, brave lady, thank you." He looked up, found confusion receding before relief in Joe's eyes. "Dawson," he said, smiling his own relief, "you give this woman a raise."

"I will," Joe said. "As soon as somebody tells me what for. What the hell was this, Adam? I need an explanation for this, and I imagine Marta does, too."

Marta answered for him. "Adam was right, Joseph," she said softly. "Cassandra didn't lay a finger on me. She's not that kind," she added bitterly. "She used...I don't know, some kind of hypnosis, maybe a drug...she told me to hurt myself, and I did." There was a note of bitter iron in her voice, something that made Methos re-evaluate the woman. She'd seemed soft...fragile...but he was suddenly aware of a vast reserve of hidden strength. He wouldn't want to be the one who'd put that tone in her voice.

"It's a power she has," Methos explained. "She can influence you with her voice, make you do things you wouldn't otherwise."

"How did you know?" Marta asked, her blue eyes direct.

"You're not the first pawn Cassandra has tried to sacrifice," he answered shortly. "You're just luckier than most of the others."

"When you spoke to me...not to what she made me pretend, but to me... I felt as if the cavalry had just thundered in. Thank you, Adam Pierson," she said. "I think I may owe you quite a debt."

_Your life,_ he said to himself. He had no doubt that part of the compulsion Cassandra had laid on the woman's soul would have led her to her death. "Yes," he said out loud, smiling. "We'll have to discuss that. In the mean time, Marta...is there anything else you can tell us?"

"She meant for me to set up a meeting. You, Mr. MacLeod--"

"Duncan, please."

"Duncan then. You were to meet her, just to talk. I was to give you the address of an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town."

Methos shot a glance at Mac, his lips pressed into a thin line. "Can I assume I don't have to say 'I told you so'?"

MacLeod ignored him. "That's crazy," he said bluntly, frowning at Marta. "How could she think I'd have anything to say to her after what she's done? After she beat up a mortal woman just to get information out of her? No," he said, holding up a hand as Marta would have interrupted. "Maybe your hands did this, Marta, but she was in charge of them at the time."

Marta met his eyes calmly. "It is crazy," she said. "But so is she. Her plan was to lure you there, and then have you taken by two mortals she's hired. They're...not good men, Duncan."

"Why does she want me?"

Marta shook her head. "I don't know."

"I know," Methos said coldly. He looked at MacLeod, a look designed to shut the man down. "I'm going to meet her," he said.

"No you're _not!_" The words exploded out of MacLeod without any hesitation. "You're not going anywhere near her. Marta, don't even think about giving him the address; he won't be needing it."

"This isn't your fight, MacLeod," Methos said angrily. God, but the man could be infuriating. "She doesn't want you; she's just using you to get to me. One way or another, she and I are going to have to face one another." He took a deep breath, and softened his voice. "I don't want it to be over your dead body, Mac."

Marta had turned her attention to Methos, and her eyes now widened. "You're not precisely who you say you are," she said.

"Are any of us?"

"Most of us are, more so than you, anyway. You're an Immortal."

Methos studied her for a moment, weighing his options. If she was going to be Joe's woman -- and from the look in his friend's eyes, if it hadn't already happened it would soon -- keeping the entire truth from her was going to be difficult.

"Yes," he said simply, watching her carefully. "I am. I have been for...quite a few years."

She nodded, seeming satisfied. It was more than Methos could say for MacLeod.

"We're going to talk about this," MacLeod said, his dark eyes filled with anger. "I'm not letting you walk into your death like a lamb to the slaughter. I don't care what you think you owe her."

Methos was too startled to stop the laughter. "Is that what you think? That I'm going to offer myself in your stead? I'm going to kill her, MacLeod. Need I be more plain? I'm going to take a sword and cut off her head. There was a time when I might've felt I owed her my life, but that time passed when she threatened you. The only thing I owe her now is a clean, swift stroke, and if she continues as she's begun, she can consider herself lucky to get even that."

MacLeod's eyes burned into his, unreadable. "You're sure?" he asked finally. "You have no plans to surrender yourself, or anything equally stupid?"

"None whatsoever." _Perish the thought, Mac....If I'm dead, who's going to keep you alive?_

Sighing, MacLeod looked away. "We still have to talk about it," he said calmly. "But not here. Joe...will you need help getting Marta home?"

Joe waved the suggestion off. "We'll be fine. You two go and do whatever it is you have to do."

Methos smiled. "You take care, Joseph," he said. "Of the lady, and of yourself."

Joe's eyes moved between Methos and MacLeod. "I'll want a report when the two of you come back," he said. The meaning in his tone was clear; the last two words were more important than the others. His eyes lingered for a moment on MacLeod's , and Methos could read the affection there. He hoped Mac could, too.

"Time to go," he said softly. "Mac?"

"I'll be calling, Joe," Mac said. "If that's okay."

"It's okay," Joe said quietly. "I'll be waiting by the phone, my friend."

Methos rolled his eyes. "God. Get a room."

  
   


* * *

  
   


Mac's thoughts were in turmoil as he and Methos stepped out into the corridor, closing the door firmly behind them. He couldn't believe the lengths to which Cassandra had gone to take him; she'd been a friend. The only person who knew him as he'd been in his childhood. The only living link to his brief mortality.

And now she wanted to kill him, and to kill Methos as well.

Methos had moved ahead of him, and Mac's eyes bore into his back. The set of Methos' shoulders screamed tension, and possibly anger; Mac was sure no small amount of it was directed at him. _Nothing I can do about that,_ he said silently, barely keeping pace with his friend. _Cassandra is my responsibility._

He wasn't at all certain Methos had been telling him the truth in Marta's room. The determination in those hazel eyes had seemed strong enough, but Mac could still remember the way Methos had looked beneath the axe Cassandra held over his head weeks ago. He hadn't moved, hadn't even tried to avoid a stroke that would have ended his life. Now he said he could kill her, could take her head without a second thought, but something in his words seemed...off. As if he had reached out for the callousness of his past and, finding it unattainable, had decided to fake it. At the submarine base in Bordeaux, Methos had been ready to die to escape the dark truth of his past. How much of that despair...that guilt...remained inside him?

Mac didn't want to find out.

"Adam!" he called, lengthening his stride to catch up. "Where's the fire?"

Methos turned on him, hazel eyes flashing. "Who do you think you are, MacLeod?" His voice was low, but carried as strongly as a shout. "You think you can keep me locked in your loft, safe and sound, and take out anybody who comes after my head? You think I want that?"

"I don't know what you want right now," Mac said truthfully, declining to fight. "That's what scares me."

"It's very simple. I'll use small words. I want you to stay out of my way."

"So you can kill Cassandra? Or so you can let her kill you?"

Methos shook his head in disgust. "One of these days I'm going to say something you actually believe, and the world will grind to a halt." He turned on his heel and started toward the elevator.

Mac was close behind. "Fine," he said as the door slid shut, locking them in. "I believe you."

"Right," Methos said, not looking at him.

"I believe you," Mac repeated softly. He stepped close, and ran a finger down from Methos' temple, over his jawline. Methos closed his eyes; Mac could see him fighting to hold on to his anger, and pressed his advantage. "Forgive me," Mac said. It was slightly less than a command, but not quite a request.

Methos tilted his head, turning his cheek into the caress. "You aren't playing fair, Boyscout."

"I'm learning." There was a twinge of guilt but Mac pushed it resolutely aside. His hand slipped behind Methos' neck and pulled him into a hard, demanding kiss. When he ended it, his friend's eyes were dark with need. "That's a prelude," he said softly.

"I can't wait for the opening," Methos said, his voice rough.

Mac smiled slightly and pulled away, waiting for the elevator doors to open. He'd been unaffected by the kiss, unable to share the passion he'd aroused in Methos. He wondered, briefly, if you could lie with a touch. If so, he surely had.

This time it was he who led the way down the corridor and out through the swinging glass doors. The sky was still overcast, but the rain was holding off for now; the day was bright, but grey. He led the way to the street corner and paused, waiting for Methos to catch up with him.

"Where are we going?" Methos asked, glancing around. "The T-bird's back in the garage."

"Something I need to do," Mac said shortly. People joined them at the corner, waiting for the light to change; he led Methos a short way down the street, out of the crowd's earshot.

"What is it, Mac?" Methos demanded. "What's wrong?"

A car sped past them, and another, racing to clear the intersection before the light changed. Looking up, Mac saw the signal go from green to gold, and braced himself.

_It's not a betrayal,_ he told himself. _It's a rescue._

He turned to his friend, met his eyes. "I'm sorry," he said. "I love you."

And as the next car raced for the intersection, Mac placed his hands flat on Methos' chest and shoved him. The sudden play of shock, confusion, and betrayal in the green-gold eyes was heartbreaking.

Methos never had a chance.

  
   


* * *

  
   


Mac tapped on the door to Marta's room, and waited for an acknowledgement before pushing it open.

"Joe," he said, nodding. Marta was sleeping, curled onto one side of the bed.

"Did you forget something?" Joe asked.

Mac cleared his throat, not really wanting to go on. "Little problem," he said finally. "I'm going to need your help."

Joe's lips pressed together into a hard line. "I'm busy," he said coldly. "Maybe another time."

Mac shook his head. "Not Watcher help. Sorry, I should have been clearer. Or maybe it is Watcher help. I don't know quite where to draw the line on this one." He tried a smile, and found it fit rather poorly.

He released a long breath when the chill in Joe's eyes shifted into curiosity. "What is it, Mac?" Joe asked finally. "Where's Adam?"

Mac winced. "That's kind of the problem. Adam had a little accident."

"Little?"

"He's in the morgue."

Joe let out a low whistle. "Not so little. Did anyone see it?"

"Half a city block," Mac said.

"How the hell did that happen?" Joe said, incredulous.

Mac studied the wall over Joe's shoulder. "He, ah, got hit by a car."

Joe's eyes narrowed. "A car," he said. "You're telling me that he just stepped out into traffic and got hit by a car? The most safety-conscious man in the world?"

"He may have had help. Look, Joe, we need to get him out of here. He's not going to be able to make it back to the loft on his own."

"Help?" Joe's expression made it clear that he wasn't moving without answers.

Mac sighed, and looked up at the ceiling. "I pushed him."

"You pushed him. You _pushed_ him? Have you lost your mind?"

"Keep your voice down!" Mac hissed. "You'll wake Marta. Just listen to me, okay?" He waited for Joe to nod. "He was going to go to Cassandra, Joe. I couldn't have stopped him, and I'm not sure he was going to kill her. I think he might have been going to appease her. I couldn't let that happen."

"But to kill the man? Publicly? Mac...have you any idea what he's going to do to you when he wakes up?"

In fact, Mac had several thoughts in that area, and none of them were pleasant. "It was only a matter of time anyway, Joe. Hiding his Immortality from the Watchers and maintaining contact with me was getting to be more trouble than it was worth; he was planning something like this himself. I just...sped things along."

"I knew he was going to be a bad influence on you," Joe said. "But this...this is devious, MacLeod. Dishonest. Disloyal, even."

"Yeah," Mac said, coming to a better understanding of Methos' sense of humor. "Well. It takes all kinds to make a world, I guess. Are you going to help me or not?"

Joe glared. "Of course I'm going to help you. What do you need me to do?"

"First, I need to know where Cassandra is expecting me. Then, I need you to go down to the morgue and be there when M... when Adam wakes up. Get him out of here, back to the loft, and stay there with him until I come back."

"Who do they think they have?"

"John Doe. I was close enough to be first on the scene, and I fished out his ID before anyone was close enough to see. There wasn't anything I could do about his coat and the...ah...equipment inside it."

Joe nodded, his Watcher intincts taking over. "Good; that'll save him some trouble. Adam Pierson still has some good years left. And I should be able to get his coat and whatever's in it if we hurry."

"What does this mean in terms of the Watchers? How will they react?"

Joe considered. "I have no idea how the higher-ups are going to take it, but I think a little spin control can keep things on a friendly level. After all, Adam can't be held responsible for being an Immortal when he didn't know he was one, can he?"

Mac grinned. "You guys are as bad as the CIA. Maybe they'll just let Adam become his own Watcher."

Joe's answering grin was quick. "The CIA has wet dreams about being as devious and underhanded as the Watchers."

"I don't doubt it. You can handle this, then? Getting him back to the loft?"

Joe hesitated, glancing at the woman on the bed. "I can't leave Marta," he said. "She's--"

"Awake," Marta said, turning over. "I have been since you came in, Duncan." She sat up, her eyes bright with excitement. "We probably don't have much time."

"'We?'" Joe and MacLeod spoke at the same time.

"We," she answered firmly. "They were letting me out anyway," she added. "Might as well be now. Joseph, where did they put my clothes?"

Mac looked at her oddly as she gathered her things from the closet. "Why did you pretend to be asleep, Marta?" The memory of Cassandra's tampering was in the forefront of his mind, and he needed to be sure the mortal woman was completely free of that influence.

She held up her wrist in mute answer, the blue Watcher tatoo strikingly prominent against her pale skin. "Force of habit."

Joe shrugged, smiling proudly. "She's her own woman, Mac."

"Obviously." A sudden thought occured to MacLeod, and he grinned. "Joe...I have an idea."

"Oh, Mac. I'm not liking that look at all."

"You'll like what's behind it. I have it on excellent authority," he said, "that there's a new Immortal down in the morgue."

Joe's expression was wary. "And?"

"...and he's going to need a very special Watcher," Mac concluded, eyes on Marta's. "A Watcher who understands the value of discretion. Kind of like mine," he added, turning a warm smile on Joe.

"When he wakes up, Adam is going to kill you with his bare hands," Joe said, shaking his head. He was smiling, though, in what might have been admiration. "Jason was never intended to be Adam's permanent Watcher...and it would make all of our lives a lot easier...Marta?"

"Only if I get the truth," she said seriously, eyes flicking between the two men. "I want to know how long Adam has been an Immortal, how it happened, what's happened since. I'll keep it out of the Chronicle, if that's what Joe wants, but I want to know. I won't be in the dark about my assignment, is that clear?"

Slowly, Mac nodded, respect for the lady Watcher rising. "I'll see to it that Adam gives you the story of his life," he said. _The abridged version._

"It's settled then," Marta said. "I'm Adam's Watcher."

"Shouldn't you ask your boss?" Mac asked, eyebrows lifting in amusement.

"I have a certain amount of pull," she said, grinning back at him. While Mac waited, she fished in her purse for a pen and paper and wrote quickly, tearing off a sheet. "Here's where you'll find Cassandra," she said, handing it to him. Her eyes were direct as they met his. "You come back," she ordered quietly. "For him."

Mac didn't need the slight incline of her head to tell him she was talking about Joe. He turned to his friend, unsure what to say, knowing that something had to be said before he could walk away.

Joe broke the silence before it could become uncomfortable. "Mac..." Joe's voice trailed off, uncertain. "About yesterday..."

"Stop, Joe." Mac knew what was about to happen; he'd let it happen far too many times in the past not to know the signs. There was the look of concern in the dark eyes, the thawing of cold glances; Joe was getting ready to apologize, to try to set things right between them. He probably didn't even know what he would apologize for, but he was about to do it anyway, because he was Joe Dawson. Because Joe Dawson was a man who had to make things better. "Don't say anything," Mac said quietly.

"No, I want to. What I said..."

"There's going to be time for this tomorrow, Joseph," Mac said kindly. "I don't want you saying any permanent goodbyes to me just now, so why don't we table it until I get back?"

Joe nodded slowly, taking the words as the reassurance Mac intended. "I'll hold on to the thought."

Mac smiled. "It's my turn, anyway."

  
   


* * *

  
   


Methos woke to lingering pain and a nearly overwhelming desire to kill. There was no slow ascent to consciousness, no haze over his thoughts. The knowledge of what had been done to him -- and by whom -- sprang full-blown into his mind the instant awareness returned.

There were no other Immortals in the room, which could only mean that MacLeod, against all sense, had gone after Cassandra on his own. The manner in which he'd chosen to implement his plan was nothing if not devious; if he hadn't been furious with the man, Methos might have fallen prey to a twinge of self-satisfaction. _You do pick your moments, don't you, Mac. Two years we've been friends, and you have to start listening to me now?_

The sound of low voices rising and falling in soft conversation told him all he needed to know about who was with him, and the subtle traces of his own scent on the sheets beneath him told him where he was. He spoke without rising, staring up at the ceiling and trying to keep a growl out of his voice. "Where is he, Dawson?"

"I don't suppose you'd buy that he went out for more beer?" Joe's voice came from the vicinity of the couch.

Methos sat up slowly, automatically crossing his legs beneath him in lotus and resting his hands on his knees, seeking the semblance of calm in the absence of its reality. His eyes met Joe's in a steady, calm regard that held no trace of amusement. "Where. Is. He."

Joe sighed, and glanced over at Marta. Methos acknowledged her presence with a brief nod before turning his eyes back to Joe.

"He went after Cassandra," Joe said, meeting Methos hard look without flinching. "But then, you knew that."

"I want the address. Right now. I don't care what MacLeod told you. I don't care what orders he may have given. I'm leaving here in five minutes, with the address you gave him, and I don't particularly care how much of a mess I have to make before I leave. Am I communicating?"

"Adam--"

"I believe this is one of those times when you'll want to remember your Oath, Joseph." Marta didn't look at her friend; her eyes were on Methos alone. "I think that's our safest option."

"He's just talking, Marta," Joe said reassuringly, reaching for her hand and squeezing it. "He's not going to hurt either of us."

"Sure of that, are you?" Methos said.

"Yes, I am," Joe snapped. "You can cut the bad guy act, Adam. I know you're not going to hurt anybody and you know I'm going to give you the address, so why don't you skip the macho bullshit and try acting your age?"

Astonishment at Joe's tone mixed with genuine amusement at his final shot, and Methos wasn't able to hold back the chuckle rising in his throat. The icy danger out of his past, the easy callousness he'd been reaching for, slipped out of his grasp. _Act my age--?_ "God, Joe," he said, shaking his head in admiration. "Does nothing frighten you?"

"It takes a bit more than a pissed off, half-naked Immortal without a sword," Joe answered, grinning.

Methos glanced down. _Thank god for the sheets,_ he thought with rising humor. Taking stock, he was relieved to find his jeans were still where he'd left them; only his shirt had been removed, probably to bathe whatever wounds he'd sustained when MacLeod had killed him.

When his eyes met Joe's again, the coldness had been replaced by a hint of self-mockery. He turned his gaze then on Marta, who was still watching him with wary eyes. "I'm sorry," he said kindly. "I...got a little carried away. Joe knows me too well." He paused, waiting for her acceptance; when the message hit home in her eyes, he dredged up a smile.

"What are you going to do, Adam?" Joe asked. "About MacLeod."

"Just what I said." Methos rose from the bed and searched Mac's dresser for a decent shirt. "I'm going to find and kill Cassandra, and then quite possibly kill MacLeod as well. It depends entirely on how good he is at abject apologies and promises of undying gratitude for sparing his life."

Joe smirked. "Never his strong points."

"Then we'll just have to see, won't we?" Methos pulled a dark blue sweater over his head, adjusting the sleeves automatically. He'd gotten used to borrowed clothes in the past few days. "Now, Marta. The address?"

"Here." She'd written it on a post-it note, which made Methos smile. Three fates bound up in splashes of ink on a sticky square of yellow paper. _Completely disposable. I hope that's not an omen..._

"Thank you," he said, taking the paper and holding her hand a moment longer. "Your help has been invaluable to us." He smiled, turning on the patented Adam Pierson charm.

"I shouldn't have given Duncan the address," she said softly. "It was a mistake, wasn't it?" She bit at her lower lip, the uncertainty in her eyes making her look ten years younger.

Methos laughed softly, sharing an amused glance with Joe. "It's not an exclusive club you've joined, Marta. Nobody resists Mac when he's made up his mind. I've been practicing for over a year, and I'm still not any good at it."

"Better than most," Joe said, smiling. "And he knows it."

"Which is why I'm going to have to spend an hour at least getting tire tracks off my coat when this is all over. Just one of the many joys of friendship with Duncan MacLeod." Methos picked up the coat in question and eyed it critically. _Good thing it's black...between the tire tracks and the blood, anything else and I'd be a walking advertisement for Immortality..._

He shrugged into the coat, checking his weapons' placement in a practiced, subtle movement. "Joe, if he comes back while I'm away..."

"I'll call."

"Thanks."  
"Be careful, Adam," Joe said quietly as Methos stepped into the elevator.

Methos smiled, pulling down the guard. "Is there some other way to be?"

  
   


* * *

  
   


The drive through rain and black satin streets seemed to take forever, though in truth the warehouse was no more than fifteen minutes from the loft. Each second that passed brought Methos closer to panic; fighting it back had become second nature, barely noticed as his eyes scanned the buildings, looking for the right number. The cell phone in his pocket remained stubbornly silent, as he'd expected; it had been too much to hope that Cassandra would have challenged fairly. Methos' hands clenched the wheel tightly, trying not to think beyond the moment. _Find the warehouse. Worry about the rest of it later._

And there it was, corrugated walls rising over the street like those of a fortress. Methos climbed out of the car and went directly to the door, nearly ripping it off of its hinges.

Inside, darkness and silence. Empty. No Immortal _Presence_, no mortals...nothing. Methos cursed, his voice echoing against the far walls, and strode out into the center of the floor.

There had to be something. Only that thought held him on the razor-edge of sanity. Cassandra wanted him, and she would have known he'd come, would have made provision for his arrival. She would have left a clue, somehow, to bring him to her. He moved quietly among stacked boxes, searching, the dim light filtering through dirty windows just enough to throw pools of shadow against the floor and walls. Just enough to make the search a challenge.

He found it in a box in one of the far corners of the room. A cellular phone much like his own, a note taped to the back. A tremor shook him, a sense of foreboding triggering adrenaline into his system, chemical fear.

"Leave this place and he dies," Methos read aloud, his voice shaking. "Wait."

Wait. Oh, she'd learned. One word to freeze his heart in his chest, one word to bring the blind panic crashing down on him. Kronos had thought Methos understood the true use of terror better than anyone, but this was a lesson even for him. Wait, she instructed... and wonder. The words weren't on the paper, but she knew they'd be in his mind. Wonder where she was, where MacLeod was, what had been done to him. Was he even still alive? Was Methos' mission one of rescue...or revenge?

He closed his eyes, blocking out his surroundings and reaching deep inside for calm. She wanted him frantic; Methos couldn't give her that edge.

His teeth ached as his jaw clenched painfully. Leaning against a row of boxes, he waited.

There was nothing else he could do.

  
   


* * *

  
   


"Duncan...how can you have come to this? How can the man you were have become _his_?"

Her voice was so soft, so sweet. MacLeod closed his eyes, shutting out the sight of her, sickened at what she'd become. He didn't bother to answer; she'd been questioning him for hours, taunting him, and none of the answers he gave were the right ones. None of them appeased the hunger shining in her eyes, incandescent.

Her hatred made her beautiful. The bright eyes, the fire that had burned away the non-essentials until only the purity of purpose remained. Her color was high, cheeks reddened with the passionate intensity of loathing. MacLeod could almost feel the heat of it pouring off of her.

Gone were the trappings of high society, the jewelry and silk a hindrance long surrendered. Denim jeans and a dark sweater hung on her spare frame, fashion sacrificed to functionality. Her dark hair was pulled away from her face, put up in a high pony tail that made her look young. The irony was not lost on MacLeod: Three thousand years of hatred burning in the body of a woman who looked no more than thirty.

Useless to try again, but he couldn't stop himself. "Cassandra, it doesn't have to be this way. You can let go of the hate. You can start your life again."

She smiled at him, kneeling down and placing a gentle hand on his knee. He would have covered the hand with one of his own, if they hadn't been bound behind him. "I can't let go of hate, Duncan. I am hate." Her voice was soft, almost reasonable. "He has to die for what he did to me...to my people. Surely you know that. You've revenged yourself on others for less than the crimes Methos has committed."

"It's not the same," he said patiently. "What Methos did was over two thousand years ago. He's a different man now, Cassandra."

"Is he? Good for him, then. Perhaps if I'd become a different woman I could forgive him, too. But I wasn't allowed, Duncan. I was taken out of the life I should have lived and made into something ugly and worthless, something less than human, and I will never have back the woman I should have been."

"You could, if you tried. But you stopped trying a long time ago, didn't you?"

She was quick, and the pain excruciating. He gritted his teeth, determined not to cry out as she twisted the knife she'd sunk into his thigh and wrenched it from the flesh. "Don't be snide, Duncan," she said coolly. "It doesn't suit you."

One of a thousand agonies.

  
   


* * *

  
   


"He loves you very much."

Methos fought back rage, panic, his fingers tightening on the phone. It had been hours -- hours of insanity, hope warring with fear and despair until finally he shoved it all away, closed his eyes and wrapped himself in the bliss of numbness and shock. The shrilling of the cell phone tore that hard-won calm away from him, slamming him back into a maelstrom of quicksilver pain.

Her voice dripped with venom and madness; it sounded very like his own.

"If you harm him, you will die for it."

"Your presence in his life has damaged him far more than I ever could...but I'm willing to try, Methos. You will follow my instructions to the letter, won't you? For his sake?"

"Why are you doing this? What can you possibly hope to gain?"

"At first I just wanted your head," she said, laughing quietly. "But then I would have to carry you inside me for the rest of my life. That thought repulses me now as much as it did then, Methos."

"What then? What will it take, Cassandra? Tell me what I have to do."

"Listen to me very carefully..."

  
   


* * *

  
   


She was alone. No signature of _Presence_ other than hers thrummed in his blood as he approached the condemned building, and fear rose up in him like he'd never known. Cassandra saw it, and laughed. Something tore inside him at the sound, something fragile and precious to him, and hatred welled into his heart to replace it.

"I knew you'd come," she said. "Duncan said you wouldn't, but I knew. You don't release things that belong to you so easily."

"Where is he?" Methos voice cut through Cassandra's laughter like a blade, his heart racing in his chest as panic threatened.

"You're too late," she hissed. "He's out of your reach now, Methos, as he should have been from the start."

"If you've harmed him--"

"A threat! How very original," she laughed, dark eyes gleaming with a hatred that had long since slipped into madness. He didn't know how he'd missed it before. Recriminations rose inside him, blame, guilt...he pushed it aside. He'd thought she posed no danger to MacLeod; he'd been wrong, and now he paid the price.

So would she.

They circled, blades leveled across the space between them.

"You're the one who killed him," she said softly. "Your touch is Death. Your love is Death. It doesn't matter who held the blade, Methos. It's you who struck the blow."

"Why?" Methos demanded, fighting back the fear in his voice, the crippling certainty.

Cassandra's whisper was thick with rage. "Because he begged me for your life," she said. "Because he loved you."

"He trusted you. He was your friend!"

"Until he was yours!" she shouted back, her voice hoarse with fury. "You turned him against me. You brought him into your evil, you made him a part of it. Of you." The words dropped into a hiss. "Duncan MacLeod was a good man, and you killed him, Methos, as surely as if you took his head yourself. And now you're going to die for it."

"Someone is," Methos confirmed, his tone sharp and cold as a blade of ice.

And then he struck.

  
   


* * *

  
   


She was no match for him. He could see it in the way she held her blade, the way her attacks faltered when they came together. Slowly, deliberately, he backed her down, his sword flashing out and tangling with hers, ignoring the occasional touch she scored.

Finally, the opening came. He took it without thinking, moving in, hand snaking out to grab her wrist and turn it. He heard the snap of breaking bones, and smiled, increasing the pressure until she cried out and dropped her weapon.

His blade at her throat, he pressed her down to her knees. The steel caught what light there was and reflected it up into her eyes, dark with hate and the rage of frustrated vengeance.

"You bastard," she said, gasping for breath, leaning away as he pressed the edge into her skin.

"Does this begin to feel familiar to you, Cassandra?" he whispered softly, matching her gaze with his own wine-dark fury.

"Finish it, Horseman," she grated out. "You've waited three thousand years."

"A few more moments won't hurt," he answered mildly. Casually, he drew his blade across her throat, just breaking the skin, moving around her body in a tight orbit. The circle never completely closed, flesh sealing itself as the edge passed through only to open again on the next pass. "First, you're going to tell me where I'll find MacLeod."

"He's dead."

"Then you'll tell me where I'll find his body, Cassandra, but you will tell me, make no mistake." The promise in his voice ran strong and true; there was pain in it, and anger, and the ringing solidity of iron will. "Cast your mind back," he suggested. "You know what I can do. You remember, don't you? How long it can take to die? How many times you can come back, only to find more pain, more humiliation?"

"I'm not afraid of you now," she said. It was a lie; the low, dark tremor in her voice gave her away.

"You fear me now more than ever," he said, laughing in pleasure at the terror behind her bravado. It felt good, so right, that the woman who had killed MacLeod should know the same kind of fear she'd caused. It was a deep, powerful thing, to end a life that could have been eternal; Methos steeled himself against the shining rush of exhilaration. Deep breaths filled the silence between them as he fought for conrol, for a clear, sane space between two gathering darknesses: The evil in his past, and the despair that stretched out ahead.

And he found, at the last, that there was no such space to be had. When he spoke again, it was no longer from the knife's edge of control, but rather from the ease of surrender. "Before, it was training," he said softly. "I taught you, you learned, and it ended. You remember?"

"I remember everything," Cassandra whispered.

"Now, though," he said, letting the sword press deeper into the luminous glow of her throat. "Now I want one thing from you, Cassandra, one small thing. You will give it to me...or I will send you to hell with your soul screaming an agony it will never forget. Do you understand?"

She waited in silence, and Methos nodded slowly. He hadn't expected it to be easy. Part of him recoiled from what he was about to do, despising himself....but another part, a stronger and older part, rejoiced at the freedom. The wild darkness surged into him again, around him, and he couldn't stop the gentle, terrible smile that found its way to his lips through the horror.

The sword sliced downward, taking a layer of skin from her shoulder, down the outside of her arm, drawing blood and a cry of pain. His voice thick with passions three thousand years dormant, he said, "It begins."

Her screams echoed in his ears. Sweet.

It became worse.

  
   


* * *

  
   


Sickened, Methos stumbled out of the warehouse and into the street, the cold fire of Cassandra's Quickening burning deep and hateful within him. It hadn't taken long to break her; more than anything else, the memory of ancient pain had worked its way upon her soul. She'd sobbed out the address at the last, begging him to finish her, and he had -- at the last -- complied. It had filled him with a terrifying joy to see her cringing before him as she had three thousand years in the past, and it was that, more than her request, that made him kill her. Mercy, yes, but not for her. For himself.

Everything he had been was with him now. Shifting, rising. Integrating. The Horseman, just behind him in the shadows of his mind. And now Cassandra's Quickening was his; her hatred and the pain that he'd wrenched out of her last moments of life burned in his heart with a dark and searing flame.

She was well revenged upon him. She had won.

It took him five minutes to run the distance to the abandoned apartment building where, he was sure, he would find MacLeod's remains.

  
   


* * *

  
   


He saw the blood first. It covered everything: MacLeod's clothes, his face, his hair. The floor beneath him. The ropes that bound him. Everything was red. Even so, for a moment, relief threatened to overpower him; the throat was whole. MacLeod would live again.

But then...then he saw the unnatural angle of the arms, bent backward over the chair and around the support column to which he was tied. _Dislocated,_ a cold part of him catalogued. _Both of them._ The same part of his mind noted the misshapen bare feet, skin purpled from the blows that had shattered the bones.

And then he saw the face.

It was unrecognizable. If not for the hair, if not for the clothing, he might not have known that the wreck of a body before him belonged to Duncan MacLeod. The jawbone was broken in several places, bone showing through the skin; it hung slack, revealing broken teeth and a dry, swollen tongue. One cheekbone had been smashed to concavity, the nose was broken and misaligned. Duncan's right eye was a ruin of blood and tissue.

Methos calmly, deliberately shut down the part of himself that cautioned against rage. It was to be his last moment of sanity for some time.

It took him fifteen seconds to kill both of the men Cassandra had set to guard MacLeod. He didn't use his sword. His fury was glacial, but it demanded contact. One man died as Methos crushed his windpipe. He watched this man's eyes as the air in his lungs became something useless to him, as his chest spasmed, trying to expand. It could have been faster, but Methos wanted to see the life fade from his eyes, leaving only the terror and pain of death behind.

The second man took longer. A large ring on his right hand matched a cut over MacLeod's forehead. This man died with Methos' hand around his heart. He cut deep with a blade he'd taken from the man's own hand, just under the ribs. His hand jerked upwards, behind the sternum until he could feel the waning drum of the man's pulse. He withdrew, dropped the dagger, and drove his hand deep, a motion learned in a time almost forgotten. The silken feel of blood and tissue over his skin awakened memories long buried, and his grip tightened, fingers sinking in, feeling the man's life force slip away.

At the end, the guard lost control of his bowels. The stench was as familiar as the sensuous glide of carnage over his hands; Methos' breath came fast and hard as his muscles clenched, yanking his hand down and out of the man's body, heart still clasped within his iron grip. The resistance as veins and arteries snapped away from the organ was too slight to be a hindrance; in the end, he stood with the man's steaming heart in his hand, blood coating his arm to the shoulder, a splash of blood over one cheek. The coppery smell of it brought a feral grin to Methos' lips, and a dark red rush of pleasure and adrenaline ripped through his body. He welcomed it, trembled with the force of it, allowing his eyes to drift closed for a span of seconds, savoring.

When the tremors had run their course, Methos' eyes opened. The red haze that had engulfed him retreated, but hovered just at the edge of sensation, waiting. With deliberate motions, Methos dropped the second guard's heart and wiped his hands on the coat of the first. He moved to MacLeod then, untied the ropes at his wrists and feet.

MacLeod wasn't breathing; that was to be expected. Methos had never seen anyone, Immortal or otherwise, with injuries so extreme over so much of the body. He carefully examined the worst of it, the eye, and determined to his satisfaction that enough tissue remained; it would heal.

Methos reached into the pocket of his coat and retrieved the cellular phone within. He dialed, waited, then spoke.

"It's over," he said.

"What happened?" Joe's tone carried a great deal of worry, and only the barest trace of recognition. "Is Mac all right?"

"He's dead, but not for long. He'll be fine. I've left quite a clutter at the corner of 2nd and Cross. There's a condemned apartment building. 5-D. You may want to send a few of your tattooed friends for the clean-up."

"Cassandra....?"

"She's dead."

There was a moment of digestive silence as Joe broke that down into its many implications. "Are _you_ all right?" he asked finally.

There was no answer to that question. Methos couldn't even think in those terms.

"Adam?"

"Adam is dead, too."

Without another word, he closed the phone, disconnecting, and set about freeing his friend.

  
   


* * *

  
   


It couldn't be the loft, but neither could it be anywhere else. Methos' apartment was too small, and there were too few of the comforts MacLeod would need even after his body recovered. At the loft there was a soft bed that would be familiar to Mac, food both for the body and the soul, a tub to soak the ache from mending bones... but there would also be interruptions. Joe, Marta, Richie, possibly Amanda. Definitely Amanda; she'd had plans to return after her morning visit. _God, was that just this morning...?_

He would send them away, if they were lucky. If he were lucky. Otherwise, he'd kill them.

Methos parked illegally in front of a fire hydrant and on the wrong side of the street, right in front of the entrance to the Dojo. He opened the rear door and hauled MacLeod out, ignoring the flash of hot pain that shot through his arms and shoulders as he gathered the man's not inconsiderable weight into his arms. He didn't have the luxury of being gentle; if he were caught on the sidewalk with a dead man, there would be questions raised he wasn't ready to answer and repercussions he didn't even want to think about.

For once, Methos didn't curse MacLeod for the lack of security; he was glad to find the door unlocked, gladder still that there were no alarms to trip on his way in. Not so glad to find Ryan upstairs, pacing, sword at the ready and a fierceness in his eyes Methos had never seen there before.

"Get the guard up," Methos ordered. The authority in his tone was absolute, and it had the desired effect. Shocked out of his anger and fear, Richie dropped his blade without thinking and went to help.

The kid was quick; he reached beneath Mac's body and grasped Methos' arms, forming a cradle for the body between them and taking half of the weight. Methos felt fire searing along muscles that had gone dead from the weight and pressure, and winced in mingled pain and gratitude. Perhaps Ryan's presence wasn't such a bad thing after all.

"Bed?" Ryan asked, green eyes flicking over Mac's body and then up.

"Shower," Methos answered. "I couldn't save him; the least I can do is save his sheets."

Once in the bathroom, they leaned Mac up against the back of the shower and stripped him. It was all Methos could do to keep his last meal down; MacLeod was drenched in his own blood, drying dark rust-red over every part of his body. The wounds beneath were gone for the most part, but the blood was a potent reminder of the agony the man had suffered. Methos felt the darkness, the anger, rising in him again and clamped down on it, battling it away with closed eyes and steady, tidal breaths.

Many of the bruises had faded completely, and the ones that remained had gone greenish-yellow with healing. The cuts were completely healed. Only the bones had yet to knit, and Methos was glad of it; he'd not yet had a chance to fix Mac's shoulders, align them so they'd heal properly. "Hold him," he ordered Ryan, waiting only a moment for compliance. With a wrenching twist, Methos popped MacLeod's shoulders back into their sockets, first the left, then the right. Ryan's face was white, but his eyes were steady; he was stronger than Methos had thought.

"What's wrong with his eye?" Ryan said, low-voiced, as if he might wake MacLeod from death with too much noise.

"They tried to put it out. It'll be okay." Already, there was a slight swell beneath the eyelid, healing proceeding apace beneath the skin.

"Did you--?"

"Yes. All of them. Unpleasantly."

"Good." There was a note in Ryan's voice that suggested he might have liked to watch.

Methos waved Ryan back, away from the tub, and started the water running.

"You're going to...bathe him?"

Methos looked up, met Ryan's eyes calmly. "Somebody has to. You asking for the job, kid?"

"Ah...no."

"Then why don't you go get the bed ready? I'll call you when I need you."

"Right. Great. The bed." Ryan backed out of the room, closing the door behind him, and Methos sighed. The young were getting younger every day.

The water had warmed, and Methos dipped a soft cloth into it, running it gently over the Highlander's shoulders. In only a few seconds, the water ran red. He let it drain, refilled the tub; the sequence had to be repeated three times before the body beneath his hands was clean. Several times Methos had to stop, to back away from the tub and press himself against the far wall, squeezing his eyes closed and clutching his head between trembling hands as he reached for control of his anger. He wanted nothing more than to rend something, break something, shatter it beyond recognition. His enemies were dead, all the people who had brought the two of them to this little room. A room that should never have smelled of carnage and death.

They were dead, but the desire to kill had not been satisfied. He'd needed time to kill them slowly, but there hadn't been enough. He thought he might hate himself forever, for not taking the time to do it right, to give them the deaths they had deserved. And he thought he might feel that need forever.

He shook himself, and stood. Pushed away the darkness yet again. Mac still needed him.

Methos drained the tub again, and turned on the shower, letting the spray wash away the last of the blood from the porcelain and the body it supported.

"Ryan," he said, barely raising his voice, knowing the kid would hear him. The door opened instantly, proving him right.

"Here. What can I do?"

"Help me lift him. We'll get him dry, and then into bed." They worked in silence, Ryan supporting Mac's weight while Methos dried him with a large bathsheet. Minutes later, MacLeod was in his own bed.

"Adam..." Ryan paused, started again. "Methos, I need to know what happened."

"Give me a hand here." Together, they moved the heavy armchair from its place by the couch over to the head of the bed, and Methos sank into it, his body automatically conforming to the leather contours. "Rich, I know you want answers," he said, eyes drifting shut in spite of his best efforts to keep them open. "You'll have to get them from Joe. I can't do it now."

"Damn it, I--"

Methos' eyes snapped open at the tone of Ryan's voice, and the look in them stopped the young man cold. "Get out, kid," he said softly. "While I'm still in a mood to let you."

"This is a battle you're going to choose, then?" Ryan's voice was hard, edged, but there was a note of resignation in it. His eyes, too, were clearer, as if whatever had been pushing him forward had backed off.

Methos smiled a little, a vicious expression that felt both alien and comfortable on his lips. "It chose me a long time ago. Be careful it doesn't choose you, as well."

"I'll go downstairs," Ryan said. "But I'm not leaving. He's my friend. If that's not good enough, you're gonna have to use more than words."

Methos waved a weary hand at him, letting the anger slip out of his expression. "Just go. Call Joe, tell him everything's going to be okay. Tell him not to come over. I'll let you know when Mac comes out of it, all right?"

"Or if..."

Methos closed his eyes. _God, but I'm tired_. "He's going to be fine," he repeated. Each time he said the words, he believed them a little less. Wouldn't do to let Ryan see that, though. "He just needs to rest. So do I," he finished pointedly, glancing at the elevator.

The sound of the elevator gearing up was like music. Methos sank even deeper into the chair, tension flooding out of him with the fading of Ryan's _Presence_. No need to pretend anymore. No need to keep his emotions leashed, his fears hidden.

Mac had been out too long.

_He's an Immortal,_ Methos said to himself, trying to banish the sick dread that clutched at his heart. _His head is still attached to his shoulders. That's all that matters._

If he'd been able to believe that, the soft groan from the bed wouldn't have been half so surprising.

  
   


* * *

  
   


Life and pain seeped into MacLeod's body as one, death giving way before the inevitable renewal of Immortal flesh. Neurons flared into white-hot agony in his feet and hands, joined by the dull, pounding ache behind his right eye. He tried to speak, to move, and managed only a groan and the twitch of a hand.

"It's all right," a voice said. He cringed away from it, panic returning, memory. He curled away from the touch of gentle hands, waiting for the hurting to begin again. How many times...? How many deaths...? He'd stopped counting, stopped caring, craving unconsciousness like a drug as she'd torn him again and again, waiting for life to return and then starting over. The question, always the question, where was he...? Where was Methos?

"I'm here, Mac," the voice said, whispering, cutting beneath the fear. _Methos...?_ "You're at home, you're in the loft. It's all right..." The touch came again, soothing against his cheek.

And sanity returned.

Methos.

Home.

"Meth--"

"Shh. Don't try to talk yet. Your throat will heal more quickly if you stay quiet."

Something was wrong with Methos' voice. It was ragged, thick... _Could he be...?_

Mac turned, opened his eyes. From the right, there was only a blur -- light, but no resolution. From the left, though, he could see clearly. There were tears running down Methos' cheeks, and the hand that touched his face was trembling.

Mac wet his lips, swallowed. Forced out the words. "Are...you all right?"

He watched, relieved, as Methos' eyes widened, heard a strangled laugh rumbling from the man's throat. "You are a Boyscout, Mac."

"Somebody's got to be." The words were coming easier now, clearer. "Water...?"

"Five seconds. Don't go anywhere."

It was more than five seconds. Mac counted. _Maybe he needs the time to get himself under control..._ He made it to sixty before Methos returned with a steaming mug. "What...?"

"Apple mint tea," Methos said, smiling a little. There was no trace of tears on his face, no redness in his eyes. "I understand it's great for coming back from the dead."

Mac sipped slowly, making a face. Methos had been right -- the stuff was awful. He surrendered the mug willingly when his friend took it and set it aside. He lay back against the pillows, reveling in the gradual surcease of pain. Methos reached out and pushed back a lock of his hair, fingers brushing gently over his skin, and Mac smiled. "That feels good," he said, letting his eyes close. His smile widened when the soft stroking continued.

"How are you?" Methos asked quietly.

"Mending. Feet are the worst. Right eye."

"Yes, I know."

"Pain's fading, though. I'll be fine in a few minutes."

"Fine?"

"I _am_ an Immortal, Methos. There are certain advantages."

Methos laughed softly. "So there are."

"Cassandra...?"

The caress stopped abruptly, the hand withdrawn. Mac opened his eyes, and caught his breath. The expression on his friend's face was...dead. Completely closed off, totally withdrawn. Concern for his friend returned full force. "Methos?"

"She's dead," Methos said shortly. The voice was the same as his face, revealing nothing.

"Did you--"

"Change the subject, Mac," Methos said, cold eyes settling on his.

Mac nodded, frowning slightly. He was willing to do that, to do anything, to take that look off Methos' face.

For now. He didn't have the energy for a discussion anyway. "Methos?"

"What now?"

"Could you...get me something to eat?"

"You know I'm not much of a cook--" Methos began.

"I need strength to heal," Mac said, smiling ingenuously at the expression of consternation on his friend's face. _A little food won't do you any harm, either..._

Methos scowled. "Whining is a definite sign of improvement."

"I have ice cream in the freezer."

"Ice cream? You've been dead for over an hour, and you want ice cream?"

"It's strawberry ice cream. Practically health food. Vitamin C."

"I think we've been spending too much time together, Mac," Methos said, chuckling. "You're picking up bad habits."

"You pick up a few good ones, we'll call it even."

"Don't hold your breath."

Mac grinned, and sat up. Methos was at his side instantly, supporting him, checking his eye carefully. Mac batted his hand away. "It's okay now," he said, opening both eyes wide as evidence. Already, his vision was perfect.

"Fine, fine." Methos pulled back and started to rise.

Mac's hand flashed out, clamped down on his friend's wrist. "Wait."

Methos had frozen, eyes on Mac's hand. "That hurts," he said softly.

Mac let up a little, but didn't let go. "I'm sorry. I just...don't want you to go just yet. Would you stick around a while?"

The older man swallowed, cleared his throat. "A while?"

"A few hours?"

"No more than a day," Methos said.

"A week, tops. No longer."

"A month?"

"Pushing, aren't you?" Mac said, grinning. His hand drifted up, fingers skimming over Methos' throat, his jawline. "How long _can_ you stay?"

Their eyes met -- locked and held. Methos leaned in close, so close Mac could feel his breath. "How long do you think you'll need me?"

"How long do you think you have?"

Lips claimed his, strong, soft, stealing the last of the words, and Mac pressed closer, opening to the kiss. It was slow, thorough, less passion than homecoming. Less heat than comfort. Methos' taste was as warm and unique as he'd remembered, his touch a welcome reminder of safety and peace.

When he finally pulled back, Methos was smiling. "I have as long as it takes," he said.

And reached for Mac again.


End file.
